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Comments · 37

  1. Towers are per-carrier on Ask Slashdot: 4G Networking Advice For Large Outdoor Festival? · · Score: 1

    You're correct, only that carrier's customers (and supported MVNOs) would be able to use that tower on a truck.

  2. The carrier perspective on Ask Slashdot: 4G Networking Advice For Large Outdoor Festival? · · Score: 2

    This event is an excellent candidate for a temporary cellular deployment, engineered and operated by a carrier. Typically, they will not charge for the service because of the extra call revenue and to avoid bad publicity from poor coverage or capacity. Unfortunately, you would need to engage both Verizon and AT&T to provide service for their own customers.

    I recommend not deploying a cellular repeater in this case because there is likely insufficient isolation between the surrounding macro network and your event site. Without sufficient isolation, the repeater will impair the operation of the host base station and not even provide significant coverage improvement due to massive multipath problems. If you're interested in a survey, you could use an Android phone with RF Signal Tracker and record the RSCP and Ec/Io of UMTS ("3G") service.

    If the carriers are not interested, I recommend deploying your own Wi-Fi network. I cannot offer advice on how many access points you would need, but it will be many. Because Wi-Fi was never meant to be infrastructure and lacks features like uplink scheduling and handover, controlling the footprint of each access point is very important.

  3. It does, but not well on How Google Is Remapping Public Transportation · · Score: 1

    In some areas, Google Maps already provides multi-modal trip planning on public transportation, as long as those modes fall into that category. But it doesn't work very well. I can ask for driving directions between a city and an island which will include the ferry, but asking for public transit directions between the same two points routes me on Amtrak several hundred miles south, then various bus connections to ferries servicing various small islands before reaching a completely different ferry than the first mentioned one. Total time over twelve hours when the direct route on public transportation is about four. Clearly, their algorithms need improvement.

  4. Re:OPT OUT on Female Passengers Say They Were Targeted For TSA Body Scanners · · Score: 1

    Terahertz radiation does not cause cancer. I recently completed a masters degree studying terahertz waves. You may be confusing the terahertz scanners with the X-ray scanners, which DO cause cancer.

  5. Re:"Laser", but not really on First-of-its-Kind Hard X-ray Free-Electron Laser Images Intact Viruses · · Score: 1

    This is a great post. I was not aware that FELs are only spatially coherent due to bunching. I was under the impression they were also temporally coherent.

  6. Missing the point of IPv6 on Major Sites To Join ‘World IPv6 Day’ · · Score: 1

    One of the main advantages of IPv6 is we will be able to abolish NAT (for security, transparency, and reliability), yet you propose we adopt IPv6 and issue all Internet users with an... address translation device? Why not advocate keeping IPv4 then?

  7. No unit goof on Room Temperature Semiconductor of T-Rays · · Score: 4, Informative

    The units and quantities used in the article are correct. Two lasers, with wavelength in the range of 3 to 30 nanometers, shine into a magic box. Out of the magic box comes light with a wavelength which is the difference of the two input lasers. The magic box is a material with a nonlinear response to electromagnetic waves, such as gallium arsenide.

  8. Now that you mention it... on NTP Sues Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile · · Score: 3, Funny

    My university's co-op department sent out an e-mail advertising "RIM jobs". Apparently there were many RIM jobs, and we should apply for them.

  9. Magnetic fields do no work on New 'Stellarator' Design for Fusion Reactors · · Score: 1

    While a varying magnetic field can do work on a charged particle, magnetic confinement fusion systems use static magnetic fields. A static magnetic field does not do work on a charged particle.

    Also, the particles move to the position of lowest potential energy, not necessarily along lines of constant field strength.

    Good summary otherwise.

  10. Not for general-purpose computing on Intel Researchers Demonstrate 40Gbps Optical Chips · · Score: 1

    People in the communications business know not to bet against electronics. Optics are very useful for long distance communications, but for several reasons the technology in the linked article will not make a new CPU nor will it be a chip-to-chip interconnect.

    This technology will be useful for integrating lasers into signal-processing chips.

    Also, would the editors kindly link to the original Intel post? The Gearlog story adds absolutely nothing.

  11. MS SQL Server Express is free for a reason on MySQL on Windows - Good Idea? · · Score: 1

    MS SQL Server Express is just the database engine. That's it. It comes with a very basic configuration GUI, so you will be doing all database management directly through SQL or other Microsoft API functions. I tried the Express edition and actually couldn't figure out how to make Access connect to it, let alone make a database.

    You'll save money but you won't save time or effort.

  12. NT Cross-platform on If Windows Came to PPC, Would You Switch? · · Score: 1

    Windows NT4, at release, supported MIPS R4000, PowerPC, Alpha 21064, and i386. Support for MIPS and PPC was dropped after Service Pack 2. Windows 2000 had Alpha support until beta 3.

  13. Newsflash! Windows NT not portable! on Pointers for Developing x86 Virtualization? · · Score: 1

    Accordining to noted troll Christopher Anthony, Windows NT is not portable! Administrators still running NT on Alpha are understandably shocked.

    Windows NT was designed with a hardware abstraction layer to seperate machine dependent code from the rest of the code base. Windows NT 4.0 was launched on x86, Alpha, MIPS, and PowerPC. So much for not portable.

  14. Attention Mozilla Homosexuals on Pop-Up Ads Lead to Consumer Revolt, Ad-Blocking · · Score: 0, Troll

    Referring to Internet Explorer users as losers just because they use that browser is no better than calling someone a loser just because they drive a Ford.

    You are exactly the kind of person who cannot participate in a fair and balanced discussion of anything due to your extreme personal biases.

    Now go have sex with your Tux furry doll.

  15. Long distance serial link? on Wired Voice and Data to Cellular Options? · · Score: 1

    I'm talking out of my ass here, but if you could directly connect a serial link to a cell phone you would get better throughput. I can get 9.6Kbps from Fido. You would need to get some sort of serial link extender from the mountain to your terminal.

    By the way, what's the closest city? Are you north of Prince Rupert?

  16. Your troll fails it! on Ukrainian Computer Destruction Championship · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I'm sorry, but your troll sucks. One-liners about Windows are old news.

    Go back to writing for Will and Grace!

  17. (b^x)^y != b^(x+y) on Recommendations for RPN Calculators? · · Score: 3, Funny

    Looks like you depend on your TI-89 a bit too much.

    (b^x)^y = b^(xy)

  18. Yuo fail it! on Drooling Over VA Tech's 1100-Node G5 Cluster · · Score: 1

    Hi, your troll sucks ass. Perhaps you should elaborate on how the CPU is inaccurate rather than one stupid application.

  19. That's not MSN Messenger on Blocking MSN Messenger? · · Score: 1

    That turns off the Windows Messenger serivce. It sends administrative messages to machines over NetBIOS.

    MSN Messenger is not a service, it's a user program.

    However, if you set Windows Messenger to manual or disabled you don't get that annoying spam that's so popular now.

  20. Why drugs cost less in Canada on Antibiotic Resistant Staph Antibiotic Discovered · · Score: 1

    Drugs in Canada are price controlled. The drug companies aren't selling for less in Canada because they want to, they sell for less because they have to.

    In 1991 prescription drugs cost 34% more in the US than Canada. Canadian law regulates the price of new drugs and price increases of existing drugs. Also, provincial health ministries subsidize pharmaceuticals.

  21. Re:Matlab on gridMathematica Announced · · Score: 1

    As an aside, did you know that Matlab 6.5 contains a Maple 5 package? Matlab isn't going symbolic, but it is there for you to use.

    I agree with your point about most of Matlab being based on prior mathematical knowledge. But how can you say there is incentive to develop something like Matlab for free? People are used to the exchange of money for goods and services of value. No money exchanged therefore means your "purchase" has no value. It must have no monetary value because no one will buy it.

    You can state the ideals of free software all you want, but at the end of the day someone wants to be paid to do the job.

  22. Matlab on gridMathematica Announced · · Score: 1

    So you think that people working in their spare time can create a decent Matlab clone. Do you even know what Matlab is, or what it is truly capable of?

    There's a reason why Matlab costs a fortune. Can Octave simulate a complete end-to-end 802.11b system? Can it simulate an automotive drivetrain, or better yet make changes to a dSPACE ECU development module on the fly?

    With OSS, you get whatever some group of hippies decided to put down on paper. With commercial software, you get quality engineering software.

  23. SGI's Gettin' Some on SGI Introduces World's Densest Server · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Good to see a non-Intel compatible platform release something interesting these days. What we need is faster, cheaper hardware that makes sense!

  24. Re:You're an idiot on PCI Shortwave Receiver · · Score: 1

    ...And you're missing the point too. Anyone stupid enough to suggest that a shortwave reciever should be used as a general purpose spectrum analyzer should go back to high school.

  25. You're an idiot on PCI Shortwave Receiver · · Score: 1

    Spectrum analyzers are designed to display a very large portion of the spectrum. Radios are designed to amplify a very small portion of the spectrum.

    When was the last time you used your home sterero as a spectrum analyzer?