If information can be gathered, it will be. If laws are passed to restrict access to it, people will find ways around the laws and/or just plain break the law when they want to. This is true in both the public and private sectors.
Whether it's websites that find new ways to track everywhere you browse, or government boffins who want to know what you eat for breakfast and how often you have sex, they ARE going to get that information. The technology exists now to do it, so they WILL do it.
What should TERRIFY all of us -- without exception -- is the way this is being handled, both in the private and public sectors: "we will gather the info, but we promise not to abuse it and we will restrict access to it."
Folks, that ain't gonna happen. People are people. Crooks are crooks and curiosity kills every time.
Perfect example and please don't take this the wrong way. I'm NOT trying to restart the old debate about healthcare in the US. But I have to admit that it has puzzled me that some of the same people who scream about businesses tracking everything we do, don't say a word about the FACT that the Affordable Health Care Act creates one of the largest, most invasive and complete databases of health information that has ever existed.
And our protection? The same thing you see here. "We promise not to abuse this goldmine of information in any way. We're the government and we're here to help. Trust us."
Do you REALLY believe that, in a tight election, juicy tidbits aren't going to magically "slip" out about some challenger's medical history?
I don't know what the answer is. But if you begin to understand that there is no real expectation of privacy anymore, you're at least headed in the right direction.
If you're an individual, you can get the US Department of Labor to go to bat for you. They take an EXTREMELY dim view of businesses that don't pay for labor. (I was once on the receiving end from them -- long story, it was dispute with employee who would just come in to work without authorization and stack up hours, then complained when we didn't pay him -- and even though we were in the right in that particular dispute, WOW were they a pain to deal with.)
As others have suggested, you also do need to talk to an attorney -- but unless the invoices represent many thousands of dollars, it may not be worth it.
As for the comments here about how corporations can "rip you off" -- the deep, dark secret; the unspoken truth is, if someone won't pay you, your options are limited. Whether it's a neighbor who owes you for a lawn mower or a big corporation that owes you for work and services, you can take them to court, obtain a judgment, then execute same. It takes quite a while, though -- many, many months.
If the other party *can't* pay you, here's an even deeper secret: you're out of luck. Unless they have assets that you can seize, there's not a court in the United States that can force someone to invent money with which to pay you. I realize that's probably not the case here, but I state that just for completeness. Even if you win a judgment in court, if the other party CAN'T pay you, you have a pretty piece of paper and absolutely no money.
> So you're suggestion is that elementary school teachers pack heat?
Of course not... unless they WANT to. They should be allowed to if they choose to do so.
I would never force anyone to carry a gun. At all. But if a responsible person wants to carry one, even a school teacher, he/she should be permitted to do so.
>Do you know what happens to panicked people, children or otherwise, who get in the middle of firefights?
When only the Sicko is carrying and using a gun, the panic will be rather MORE severe until said Sicko runs out of ammo or the gun jams (as happened in that mall up in Oregon the other day). Is that what YOU prefer?:)
My cousin and his wife were in that restaurant when Sargent French went on his rampage. He's a gun owner and is extremely responsible and law abiding. But at the time, concealed carry was illegal and just out of respect and common decency, he didn't take his gun with him. But I remember him telling me that, while he was huddled behind an overturned table with his wife, he wished he had his gun with him.
He never goes anywhere without it now.
What happened today was a tragedy. The real problem isn't the guns, it's people. Even if you could completely outlaw and eliminate guns tomorrow morning, sickos would still find some way to hurt others. No, it might not be a mass killing like this, but if you're the one on the receiving end of a sicko's attentions, whether you're in a group of hundreds, or all by yourself in a one-bedroom shack, is irrelevant.
> There really isn't much of any of those states that is "out back".
Oh, I'm not comparing them to rural Australia, don't get me wrong. The big killer, in any event, is the lack of wireless phone service in a really remote area. You don't realize how dependent you are on that until it's not available.
And "lost" is a relative thing. You may have a great sense of direction (I do as well). Not everyone does. Hiking to the nearest road isn't easy when you're doing it through thick woods that are filled with briars, too. (Trust me. I speak from experience.)
I don't know about 2-3 hour drive without seeing any signs of civilization, but that stretch from Atlanta to Augusta, GA, is pretty barren. The run from Augusta to Columbia, SC is pretty sparse as well. Doesn't compare to the "sticks" in Australia, I know... but I can assure you, there are backroads in SC with no signs, no markings whatsoever, and unless you DO have a great sense of direction and can count turns, you can easily get lost.
In this case, of course, the complaint is that Apple's Map application is sending people into the sticks, where their vehicles can become stuck. Not the same at all, I didn't mean to apply that it was.
> Kinda like Wyoming, or North Dakota, or even British Columbia?
Or Alabama. Or Mississippi. Or South Carolina. The main roads are pretty good and are well marked, but as soon as you get on a secondary road, it's VERY easy to get lost.
> Each GPS unit I ever used, tried funny stuff with me at on time or another.
This. It depends on the area. One rule of thumb is, if there's a lot of detail in Google Earth or Google Maps (online), your GPS may be better. Can't speak to Apple's maps, because I don't use Apple. I'm all-Google, including the Android phone.
But here in Alabama, the GPS maps (and even the official government 7.5 minute maps, for that matter) can be hilariously incorrect. I've had to turn off that stupid voice on my GPS because it drives me crazy with the constant, "recalculating."
A few years ago, I had to do a partial proof on an AM array, which required driving all of the place, taking field strength measurements. Even though it's a Birmingham (ie, metro-area) station, there were parts of Jefferson county that were Dueling Banjos territory. The GPS was just flat wrong in several instances.
Fortunately, I marked all of the locations in my GPS so that when I had to do a recert recently, I could find the original measurement points very easily.
> And frankly Win 7 runs great even on low power devices
Can't argue with that. But I still think it's crappy. I'm even fair enough to say that not all of it is Microsoft's fault, and that some of it is simply being a victim of their own success. (The old, "the reason why malware people target Windows is because it's the most common" thingie.)
But case in point: my wife's HP netbook came with Win7 installed. She managed to browse the Web for maybe two weeks before catching a virus. She wasn't visiting dodgy or off-the-highway sites, either. She got hacked because one of her favorite "name brand" sites had been hacked.
We had two choices: install some sort of virus/malware protection, which typically cuts performance in half, or kill the OS. She begged me to install OpenSuse Linux on it (that's what I use) and she has been happy ever since.
At work, I can use a content/malware filter on all of our Windows machines. On an individual PC, though, unless (as I said) you want to really, really kill performance, or stay off the Internet, it's a pain in the butt. Where Microsoft DOES get some blame for this is in the design decisions they made years ago, and which are perpetuated today, to go for "ease of use" rather than truly locking down the system.
Just my opinion, and worth exactly what you paid for it.:)
> Liberal universities can kick you out for spewing Christian fundamentalist nonsense,
But the liberal universities in question are usually state- or federally-funded. The Christian universities that you seem to have in mind are typically privately-owned and operated.
Just pointing that out. Your idea of eliminating government involvement is a great one, but it'll never happen.
The vast majority of Americans never fly. All they know is that there haven't been any more airplanes crashing into buildings. Ergo, they conclude that the TSA must be working.
If they did fly regularly, and ever watched some little kid screaming because the TSA agent was groping and touching them "where mom and dad told me never to let anyone touch me," they'd change their opinions in an instant.
> 100% false (unless you are talking about a very, very small "city".
And don't forget antenna location. As a general rule, higher is better. If you're trying to jam an entire city from a car in the street, you'd have to radiate so much power that your alternator would whine and your brain would become... warm.:)
Be better from the top of tall building, but now you can easily be located and dealt with. Unless you're spiderman and can leap from one building to the next, that is. Or, you don't think anyone would notice you hauling a bunch of weird-looking stuff onto the roof of a building.
This article is another one of the silly "what ifs" under the general heading of, "hey, let's scare ourselves to death about something new!" (It's not even new; jamming has been around almost as long as radio has.)
Radiated power follows an inverse square law (it drops off by the square of the distance), and higher frequencies like those used in wireless phones and routers can be blocked by walls, trees, you name it. You're gonna need a lot of power and you'll need to be well above the average terrain for this to work. Not saying it can't be done, but there are easier ways to be a butthead if you're that determined.
> I don't understand it either. The Republicans have the hick and religious nutter vote locked up, why court them at all?
Actually, there's some fascinating analysis going on right now that shows that about 3 million registered Republicans didn't bother to vote. I'm still waiting on some hard numbers, but it *looks* like (as I write this) that a number of the "hick and nutter" voters, as you call them, thought Romney was too moderate to bother with. Ergo, they didn't vote at all.
This line of analysis notes that Romney experienced a nice surge in the polls after the first debate, but by the third, when he was playing a prevent defense and agreeing with Obama as much as disagreeing, he went flat again.
> I'm not sure what it is about the US that makes it impossible to have more than 2 parties, but first past the post isn't it.
The media, for one. Remember, we have a free market, ratings-driven media system. Unless a candidate has more than a few percentage in the polls, he/she will rarely be mentioned in the news. The viewers/listeners/readers aren't interested, so the media isn't interested, which lowers interest even further. It's a positive-feedback loop. Net result: most Americans don't even know who Buddy Roemer and Gary Johnson are.
The government itself, for another. I learned this as a lad. My father was Chairman of the Board of Elections in our little county, and was a good Democrat from a long line of Democrats. The rules state that the local board must have a majority of the same party as the Governor, so when the first Republican governor in decades was elected, the board became Republican and my father lost his position. Not a big deal, and I'm not whining (neither did my father), but that type of thing indicates why a two-party system is sort of hard-coded into things here in the States.
But to illustrate the point: after that Republican governor won, there were magically and suddenly lots and lots of folks who changed their registration from Dem to Repub. In fact, the secretary at the Board of Elections office was one of them!:)
It's not "de jure," it's "de facto." One thing that Dems and Repubs can agree on -- vehemently -- is that they will do nothing whatsoever to permit new political parties to prosper.
> The reality is that historically the economy and the rich have done very well during periods of high taxes.
The rich can weather any storm (short of angry villagers storming the castle with pitchforks and torches, but don't stop me when I'm on a roll).:)
The real issue is the middle class -- or even the lower middle class -- and the desire to make something more of one's self. This may seem off topic, but it isn't: the fact is, for the US Government to have the revenue that it wants, taxing the top 2% at a 100%, confiscatory rate still won't do it. That means that, at the end of the day, they will either (a) continue to borrow, or (b), come after me.
(The real answer is (c), both of the above. I'm not even being a prophet; I'm stating a fact. They have no choice.)
To empower and grow the middle class, you need opportunity. Take the barriers out of the way, they'll create small businesses and they'll hire others. As those businesses grow, they will need capital. It's just that simple.
Getting people to believe that is the trick. It's not Republicans vs. Democrats, either. Both parties have spent more than incoming revenue (albeit on different things at times, and in different amounts).
Case in point: I work in Jefferson County, Alabama. It's bankrupt. (Literally. As in the largest municipal bankruptcy. Ever.) In spite of that, a few months back, the County Commission notes that there are condemned homes from the tornadoes of April 27, 2011. They declare it an emergency and SPEND MONEY THAT THEY DON'T HAVE on the "problem."
There is a fundamental disconnect here. No one wants to believe that the great, the powerful OZ^H^H United States could run out of money, but it could. And as someone else pointed out above, the WORST case would be for the government to just start printing money to cover the shortfall. That will be completely and utterly disastrous.
Trying to explain that to the average guy on the street is the trick. He or she just doesn't -- and WILL not -- get it.
Shoot, the average Guy On The Street has no idea what a sweetheart deal we have a present by having the world's reserve currency. If that should change to the Yen or some other currency, prices are going to skyrocket as well.
> I'm sorry, but this was all just smoke and mirrors. Romney never had the kind of support he'd need to win.
So in other words, you're not going to give the Obama campaign any credit for that last month, when they frantically did a superb job after his fairly-dismal showing in the first debate? They didn't need to do any of that door-knocking, or campaignin' in Ohio and Pennsylvania, is that it? Heh.
> (which we've known ever since Romney was nominated)
Ummm... no. I popped in here to give kudos to Nate Silver, give credit where due, but... no. That is just not true. This election could have easily gone the other way if Romney had made a few less mistakes, and if that hurricane hadn't hit New England. In that case, Nate Silver would have looked as silly as Dick Morris does today (Morris was one of the "pundits" predicting a Romney landslide).
NO ONE can predict an election more than a few weeks in advance. You can predict probabilities (and give Silver credit, that's what he was doing), but assurances? No way.
The stories we were getting, some of it from people inside both campaigns, was that it was NOT a done deal. As Chris Matthews himself said (if rather crudely), "thank god for [that storm] (i.e., Sandy)." In fact, the week before Sandy hit, Romney DID have the momentum, and state polls in Ohio were starting to show Romney taking a slight lead.
(As one pollster correctly explained it one time: unless there's a 5-10 point lead, don't look at the actual numbers, look at the TRENDS. Romney was trending upward until Hurricane Sandy hit, then started sliding back down.)
One of the reports we got (VERY reliable) was that even Obama himself was unsure of the result on the morning of Nov 7th and had even crafted a concession speech. After the exit polls came out, his campaign started relaxing, but I assure you, it was not a "done deal" or a given.
And give the Obama campaign all the credit in the world; see the other story here on Slashdot about Obama's "data machine." They deserve a world of credit. But believe me, they worked their butts off the weekend before the election. And if they hadn't, Romney WOULD have won and Nate Silver would have been WRONG. Trust me.
> The only perfect protection is to not be there in the first place.
Sure, but (of course) that's sometimes difficult to do in real life.
Here's what I learned that April: we had plenty of advanced warning that something really bad would happen, but no one could predict exactly *where* the tornadoes would hit. Tornadoes aren't like tropical storms (and believe me, I've had plenty of experience with those things, too!). You can't track them for days, watching the slow progress as they head toward land, constantly refining the models. Realistically, you might get a tornado watch 24 hours in advance, but at best, only 30 minutes warning once the twister touches down. They brew up, cause catastrophic destruction, then dissipate.
So... OK, let's leave; where do we go? For all we knew on April 26th, they could appear anywhere in Alabama. You might leave your home, run to another city, only to have THAT one get hit instead of where your home is at.:)
The one that hit Cordova, AL was a good (bad) example. They had very little warning, and there were many people in the local Piggly Wiggly supermarket grabbing last minute groceries when it hit. The building was flattened.
The Phil Campbell story is the one that gives me the chills. The family I mentioned did as well as they could, piling into their "safe place" (the basement), only to be killed anyway.
You don't always get enough advance warning, or specific enough of a warning, to simply "go somewhere else."
And believe me, you don't want to be driving in tornado weather. (Even if you don't experience the high winds, you liable to come around a curve and find a tree in the road, with no time to stop. Speaking from experience.) Once they announce the warnings, the best thing to do is to find a safe place, hunker down, and just pray for the best.
When the tornadoes came through Alabama on April 27th, 2011, I know of at least two cases where people died in nice, deep cellars. In once case, the storm that tracked through Phil Campbell, AL actually picked up a vehicle and dropped it on a family, killing everyone.
Unless you reinforce the "roof" (typically the first floor of the home) over the cellar, or take other steps to ensure that things can't fall in on you (and this includes debris from a catastrophic collapse of the house itself), a basement won't necessarily protect you from an F4 or F5 "monster" tornado.
Around here, most folks seem to prefer the separate buried shelters. They have to run in the rain and wind to get into it, but they prefer that to trusting an "interior room" or a basement.
> If these people bring in shit that drops cell phone tower electricity usage by a significant factor and it actually works, it's not obvious
But the phase correction that you're talking about is mostly used with big reactive loads. Yes, you can save a ton of money in that case. But except for the HVAC and (possibly) the UPS units that back up the power, that doesn't really apply to cell sites. Besides, the application discussed in the article is for the transmitters only. Has nothing to do with these other, MUCH higher-demand devices. (The average transmitter in a typical cell site isn't very powerful.)
What they're talking about here IS obvious. It is a rework of existing technology. I could build what they're talking about with chips from Digikey or Mouser. It's simply a different variant on the old, "make the power match the demand." But yes, I have no doubt that it probably WILL be patented, but that's more a function of our horribly broken patent system than of the novelty of this "new" idea.:)
I also predict that, if they try to take someone to court to enforce their patent, it'll be another crapshoot, because I could show prior art that strongly implies what they're hawking. Then it's just a question of whom the court believes (and all bets are off ANYTIME that's the case with a patent trial).
> Class C RF power amplifiers can be ~90% efficient, because they drive a tuned load. That's been known for most of the 20th century. Is the problem that these need to be wideband amps?
You're on the right track, but the answer is a bit complicated. (The article, by the way, sounds like a PR piece for someone expecting to patent a technology that, by the same arguments we use against software patents, probably shouldn't be patentable, because it's an obvious rearrangement of existing technology. I shall elucidate.)
1. Yes, it's difficult to run wideband amps in class C. Class C works best with a single frequency at a constant level.
(To illustrate: my wideband HD transmitter, for example, must be re-biased to class AB. I can switch it to "pure" class-C FM mode and it puts out 2-3 times the power as when it's in HD mode.)
2. As a general rule: designing an efficient amplifier becomes more difficult the higher the frequency. Wireless phones run at high frequencies.
(To illustrate: class D switching amps have made it possible for your teenage son to have 1,000 watts of audio in his Nissan Sentra. But you must use a switching frequency that's much higher than the signal -- easy to do with audio, not so easy with even just an 800-900 MHz wireless signal.)
3. Read the fine print and look beyond the smoke.
We just went with Modulation Dependent Carrier Level (MDCL) on our 50,000 watt AM, and it has indeed cut our power bill substantially, which is strikingly analogous to what these people are proposing. But this is highly dependent on modulation (i.e., what we're "playing" at any given moment, whether music or voice) and other factors.
In this case, if they're obtaining the higher efficiency by "smoothly" switching between standby and active modes, one wonders how efficient it will be during rush hour, when everyone is on the phone, calling their significant other to have dinner ready when they get home.:)
Slashdot Mirror
If information can be gathered, it will be. If laws are passed to restrict access to it, people will find ways around the laws and/or just plain break the law when they want to. This is true in both the public and private sectors.
Whether it's websites that find new ways to track everywhere you browse, or government boffins who want to know what you eat for breakfast and how often you have sex, they ARE going to get that information. The technology exists now to do it, so they WILL do it.
What should TERRIFY all of us -- without exception -- is the way this is being handled, both in the private and public sectors: "we will gather the info, but we promise not to abuse it and we will restrict access to it."
Folks, that ain't gonna happen. People are people. Crooks are crooks and curiosity kills every time.
Perfect example and please don't take this the wrong way. I'm NOT trying to restart the old debate about healthcare in the US. But I have to admit that it has puzzled me that some of the same people who scream about businesses tracking everything we do, don't say a word about the FACT that the Affordable Health Care Act creates one of the largest, most invasive and complete databases of health information that has ever existed.
And our protection? The same thing you see here. "We promise not to abuse this goldmine of information in any way. We're the government and we're here to help. Trust us."
Do you REALLY believe that, in a tight election, juicy tidbits aren't going to magically "slip" out about some challenger's medical history?
I don't know what the answer is. But if you begin to understand that there is no real expectation of privacy anymore, you're at least headed in the right direction.
If you're an individual, you can get the US Department of Labor to go to bat for you. They take an EXTREMELY dim view of businesses that don't pay for labor. (I was once on the receiving end from them -- long story, it was dispute with employee who would just come in to work without authorization and stack up hours, then complained when we didn't pay him -- and even though we were in the right in that particular dispute, WOW were they a pain to deal with.)
As others have suggested, you also do need to talk to an attorney -- but unless the invoices represent many thousands of dollars, it may not be worth it.
As for the comments here about how corporations can "rip you off" -- the deep, dark secret; the unspoken truth is, if someone won't pay you, your options are limited. Whether it's a neighbor who owes you for a lawn mower or a big corporation that owes you for work and services, you can take them to court, obtain a judgment, then execute same. It takes quite a while, though -- many, many months.
If the other party *can't* pay you, here's an even deeper secret: you're out of luck. Unless they have assets that you can seize, there's not a court in the United States that can force someone to invent money with which to pay you. I realize that's probably not the case here, but I state that just for completeness. Even if you win a judgment in court, if the other party CAN'T pay you, you have a pretty piece of paper and absolutely no money.
> So you're suggestion is that elementary school teachers pack heat?
Of course not ... unless they WANT to. They should be allowed to if they choose to do so.
I would never force anyone to carry a gun. At all. But if a responsible person wants to carry one, even a school teacher, he/she should be permitted to do so.
>Do you know what happens to panicked people, children or otherwise, who get in the middle of firefights?
When only the Sicko is carrying and using a gun, the panic will be rather MORE severe until said Sicko runs out of ammo or the gun jams (as happened in that mall up in Oregon the other day). Is that what YOU prefer? :)
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/08/us/soldier-kills-4-people-and-hurts-6-in-a-restaurant-in-north-carolina.html
My cousin and his wife were in that restaurant when Sargent French went on his rampage. He's a gun owner and is extremely responsible and law abiding. But at the time, concealed carry was illegal and just out of respect and common decency, he didn't take his gun with him. But I remember him telling me that, while he was huddled behind an overturned table with his wife, he wished he had his gun with him.
He never goes anywhere without it now.
What happened today was a tragedy. The real problem isn't the guns, it's people. Even if you could completely outlaw and eliminate guns tomorrow morning, sickos would still find some way to hurt others. No, it might not be a mass killing like this, but if you're the one on the receiving end of a sicko's attentions, whether you're in a group of hundreds, or all by yourself in a one-bedroom shack, is irrelevant.
> There really isn't much of any of those states that is "out back".
Oh, I'm not comparing them to rural Australia, don't get me wrong. The big killer, in any event, is the lack of wireless phone service in a really remote area. You don't realize how dependent you are on that until it's not available.
And "lost" is a relative thing. You may have a great sense of direction (I do as well). Not everyone does. Hiking to the nearest road isn't easy when you're doing it through thick woods that are filled with briars, too. (Trust me. I speak from experience.)
I don't know about 2-3 hour drive without seeing any signs of civilization, but that stretch from Atlanta to Augusta, GA, is pretty barren. The run from Augusta to Columbia, SC is pretty sparse as well. Doesn't compare to the "sticks" in Australia, I know ... but I can assure you, there are backroads in SC with no signs, no markings whatsoever, and unless you DO have a great sense of direction and can count turns, you can easily get lost.
In this case, of course, the complaint is that Apple's Map application is sending people into the sticks, where their vehicles can become stuck. Not the same at all, I didn't mean to apply that it was.
> Kinda like Wyoming, or North Dakota, or even British Columbia?
Or Alabama. Or Mississippi. Or South Carolina. The main roads are pretty good and are well marked, but as soon as you get on a secondary road, it's VERY easy to get lost.
Erm, that should be 7.5 SECOND maps. Finishing my coffee now ... :)
> Each GPS unit I ever used, tried funny stuff with me at on time or another.
This. It depends on the area. One rule of thumb is, if there's a lot of detail in Google Earth or Google Maps (online), your GPS may be better. Can't speak to Apple's maps, because I don't use Apple. I'm all-Google, including the Android phone.
But here in Alabama, the GPS maps (and even the official government 7.5 minute maps, for that matter) can be hilariously incorrect. I've had to turn off that stupid voice on my GPS because it drives me crazy with the constant, "recalculating."
A few years ago, I had to do a partial proof on an AM array, which required driving all of the place, taking field strength measurements. Even though it's a Birmingham (ie, metro-area) station, there were parts of Jefferson county that were Dueling Banjos territory. The GPS was just flat wrong in several instances.
Fortunately, I marked all of the locations in my GPS so that when I had to do a recert recently, I could find the original measurement points very easily.
> wait until one of your programs makes a procedure call to one of the now non-existent UI hooks
Someone mod up the AC. Spot on the money.
> And frankly Win 7 runs great even on low power devices
Can't argue with that. But I still think it's crappy. I'm even fair enough to say that not all of it is Microsoft's fault, and that some of it is simply being a victim of their own success. (The old, "the reason why malware people target Windows is because it's the most common" thingie.)
But case in point: my wife's HP netbook came with Win7 installed. She managed to browse the Web for maybe two weeks before catching a virus. She wasn't visiting dodgy or off-the-highway sites, either. She got hacked because one of her favorite "name brand" sites had been hacked.
We had two choices: install some sort of virus/malware protection, which typically cuts performance in half, or kill the OS. She begged me to install OpenSuse Linux on it (that's what I use) and she has been happy ever since.
At work, I can use a content/malware filter on all of our Windows machines. On an individual PC, though, unless (as I said) you want to really, really kill performance, or stay off the Internet, it's a pain in the butt. Where Microsoft DOES get some blame for this is in the design decisions they made years ago, and which are perpetuated today, to go for "ease of use" rather than truly locking down the system.
Just my opinion, and worth exactly what you paid for it. :)
> Liberal universities can kick you out for spewing Christian fundamentalist nonsense,
But the liberal universities in question are usually state- or federally-funded. The Christian universities that you seem to have in mind are typically privately-owned and operated.
Just pointing that out. Your idea of eliminating government involvement is a great one, but it'll never happen.
> A majority think it's doing a good job.
The vast majority of Americans never fly. All they know is that there haven't been any more airplanes crashing into buildings. Ergo, they conclude that the TSA must be working.
If they did fly regularly, and ever watched some little kid screaming because the TSA agent was groping and touching them "where mom and dad told me never to let anyone touch me," they'd change their opinions in an instant.
Sad, but true.
> 100% false (unless you are talking about a very, very small "city".
And don't forget antenna location. As a general rule, higher is better. If you're trying to jam an entire city from a car in the street, you'd have to radiate so much power that your alternator would whine and your brain would become ... warm. :)
Be better from the top of tall building, but now you can easily be located and dealt with. Unless you're spiderman and can leap from one building to the next, that is. Or, you don't think anyone would notice you hauling a bunch of weird-looking stuff onto the roof of a building.
This article is another one of the silly "what ifs" under the general heading of, "hey, let's scare ourselves to death about something new!" (It's not even new; jamming has been around almost as long as radio has.)
Radiated power follows an inverse square law (it drops off by the square of the distance), and higher frequencies like those used in wireless phones and routers can be blocked by walls, trees, you name it. You're gonna need a lot of power and you'll need to be well above the average terrain for this to work. Not saying it can't be done, but there are easier ways to be a butthead if you're that determined.
> I don't understand it either. The Republicans have the hick and religious nutter vote locked up, why court them at all?
Actually, there's some fascinating analysis going on right now that shows that about 3 million registered Republicans didn't bother to vote. I'm still waiting on some hard numbers, but it *looks* like (as I write this) that a number of the "hick and nutter" voters, as you call them, thought Romney was too moderate to bother with. Ergo, they didn't vote at all.
This line of analysis notes that Romney experienced a nice surge in the polls after the first debate, but by the third, when he was playing a prevent defense and agreeing with Obama as much as disagreeing, he went flat again.
For what that's worth. Just an observation.
> I'm not sure what it is about the US that makes it impossible to have more than 2 parties, but first past the post isn't it.
The media, for one. Remember, we have a free market, ratings-driven media system. Unless a candidate has more than a few percentage in the polls, he/she will rarely be mentioned in the news. The viewers/listeners/readers aren't interested, so the media isn't interested, which lowers interest even further. It's a positive-feedback loop. Net result: most Americans don't even know who Buddy Roemer and Gary Johnson are.
The government itself, for another. I learned this as a lad. My father was Chairman of the Board of Elections in our little county, and was a good Democrat from a long line of Democrats. The rules state that the local board must have a majority of the same party as the Governor, so when the first Republican governor in decades was elected, the board became Republican and my father lost his position. Not a big deal, and I'm not whining (neither did my father), but that type of thing indicates why a two-party system is sort of hard-coded into things here in the States.
But to illustrate the point: after that Republican governor won, there were magically and suddenly lots and lots of folks who changed their registration from Dem to Repub. In fact, the secretary at the Board of Elections office was one of them! :)
It's not "de jure," it's "de facto." One thing that Dems and Repubs can agree on -- vehemently -- is that they will do nothing whatsoever to permit new political parties to prosper.
> The reality is that historically the economy and the rich have done very well during periods of high taxes.
The rich can weather any storm (short of angry villagers storming the castle with pitchforks and torches, but don't stop me when I'm on a roll). :)
The real issue is the middle class -- or even the lower middle class -- and the desire to make something more of one's self. This may seem off topic, but it isn't: the fact is, for the US Government to have the revenue that it wants, taxing the top 2% at a 100%, confiscatory rate still won't do it. That means that, at the end of the day, they will either (a) continue to borrow, or (b), come after me.
(The real answer is (c), both of the above. I'm not even being a prophet; I'm stating a fact. They have no choice.)
To empower and grow the middle class, you need opportunity. Take the barriers out of the way, they'll create small businesses and they'll hire others. As those businesses grow, they will need capital. It's just that simple.
But we don't have all the resources we'd need to fulfill that dream. We import a considerable percentage of what we need in our daily lives.
> I'm guessing that we're in better shape to do without them than they are to do without us. Fuck 'em.
What terrifies me is that you actually believe that. You're not alone, either.
> Simply, there will be no money.
Getting people to believe that is the trick. It's not Republicans vs. Democrats, either. Both parties have spent more than incoming revenue (albeit on different things at times, and in different amounts).
Case in point: I work in Jefferson County, Alabama. It's bankrupt. (Literally. As in the largest municipal bankruptcy. Ever.) In spite of that, a few months back, the County Commission notes that there are condemned homes from the tornadoes of April 27, 2011. They declare it an emergency and SPEND MONEY THAT THEY DON'T HAVE on the "problem."
There is a fundamental disconnect here. No one wants to believe that the great, the powerful OZ^H^H United States could run out of money, but it could. And as someone else pointed out above, the WORST case would be for the government to just start printing money to cover the shortfall. That will be completely and utterly disastrous.
Trying to explain that to the average guy on the street is the trick. He or she just doesn't -- and WILL not -- get it.
Shoot, the average Guy On The Street has no idea what a sweetheart deal we have a present by having the world's reserve currency. If that should change to the Yen or some other currency, prices are going to skyrocket as well.
> I'm sorry, but this was all just smoke and mirrors. Romney never had the kind of support he'd need to win.
So in other words, you're not going to give the Obama campaign any credit for that last month, when they frantically did a superb job after his fairly-dismal showing in the first debate? They didn't need to do any of that door-knocking, or campaignin' in Ohio and Pennsylvania, is that it? Heh.
Good on ya, mate.
> (which we've known ever since Romney was nominated)
Ummm ... no. I popped in here to give kudos to Nate Silver, give credit where due, but ... no. That is just not true. This election could have easily gone the other way if Romney had made a few less mistakes, and if that hurricane hadn't hit New England. In that case, Nate Silver would have looked as silly as Dick Morris does today (Morris was one of the "pundits" predicting a Romney landslide).
NO ONE can predict an election more than a few weeks in advance. You can predict probabilities (and give Silver credit, that's what he was doing), but assurances? No way.
The stories we were getting, some of it from people inside both campaigns, was that it was NOT a done deal. As Chris Matthews himself said (if rather crudely), "thank god for [that storm] (i.e., Sandy)." In fact, the week before Sandy hit, Romney DID have the momentum, and state polls in Ohio were starting to show Romney taking a slight lead.
(As one pollster correctly explained it one time: unless there's a 5-10 point lead, don't look at the actual numbers, look at the TRENDS. Romney was trending upward until Hurricane Sandy hit, then started sliding back down.)
One of the reports we got (VERY reliable) was that even Obama himself was unsure of the result on the morning of Nov 7th and had even crafted a concession speech. After the exit polls came out, his campaign started relaxing, but I assure you, it was not a "done deal" or a given.
And give the Obama campaign all the credit in the world; see the other story here on Slashdot about Obama's "data machine." They deserve a world of credit. But believe me, they worked their butts off the weekend before the election. And if they hadn't, Romney WOULD have won and Nate Silver would have been WRONG. Trust me.
> The only perfect protection is to not be there in the first place.
Sure, but (of course) that's sometimes difficult to do in real life.
Here's what I learned that April: we had plenty of advanced warning that something really bad would happen, but no one could predict exactly *where* the tornadoes would hit. Tornadoes aren't like tropical storms (and believe me, I've had plenty of experience with those things, too!). You can't track them for days, watching the slow progress as they head toward land, constantly refining the models. Realistically, you might get a tornado watch 24 hours in advance, but at best, only 30 minutes warning once the twister touches down. They brew up, cause catastrophic destruction, then dissipate.
So ... OK, let's leave; where do we go? For all we knew on April 26th, they could appear anywhere in Alabama. You might leave your home, run to another city, only to have THAT one get hit instead of where your home is at. :)
The one that hit Cordova, AL was a good (bad) example. They had very little warning, and there were many people in the local Piggly Wiggly supermarket grabbing last minute groceries when it hit. The building was flattened.
The Phil Campbell story is the one that gives me the chills. The family I mentioned did as well as they could, piling into their "safe place" (the basement), only to be killed anyway.
You don't always get enough advance warning, or specific enough of a warning, to simply "go somewhere else."
And believe me, you don't want to be driving in tornado weather. (Even if you don't experience the high winds, you liable to come around a curve and find a tree in the road, with no time to stop. Speaking from experience.) Once they announce the warnings, the best thing to do is to find a safe place, hunker down, and just pray for the best.
> I think they call them cellars...
When the tornadoes came through Alabama on April 27th, 2011, I know of at least two cases where people died in nice, deep cellars. In once case, the storm that tracked through Phil Campbell, AL actually picked up a vehicle and dropped it on a family, killing everyone.
Unless you reinforce the "roof" (typically the first floor of the home) over the cellar, or take other steps to ensure that things can't fall in on you (and this includes debris from a catastrophic collapse of the house itself), a basement won't necessarily protect you from an F4 or F5 "monster" tornado.
Around here, most folks seem to prefer the separate buried shelters. They have to run in the rain and wind to get into it, but they prefer that to trusting an "interior room" or a basement.
> If these people bring in shit that drops cell phone tower electricity usage by a significant factor and it actually works, it's not obvious
But the phase correction that you're talking about is mostly used with big reactive loads. Yes, you can save a ton of money in that case. But except for the HVAC and (possibly) the UPS units that back up the power, that doesn't really apply to cell sites. Besides, the application discussed in the article is for the transmitters only. Has nothing to do with these other, MUCH higher-demand devices. (The average transmitter in a typical cell site isn't very powerful.)
What they're talking about here IS obvious. It is a rework of existing technology. I could build what they're talking about with chips from Digikey or Mouser. It's simply a different variant on the old, "make the power match the demand." But yes, I have no doubt that it probably WILL be patented, but that's more a function of our horribly broken patent system than of the novelty of this "new" idea. :)
I also predict that, if they try to take someone to court to enforce their patent, it'll be another crapshoot, because I could show prior art that strongly implies what they're hawking. Then it's just a question of whom the court believes (and all bets are off ANYTIME that's the case with a patent trial).
> Class C RF power amplifiers can be ~90% efficient, because they drive a tuned load. That's been known for most of the 20th century. Is the problem that these need to be wideband amps?
You're on the right track, but the answer is a bit complicated. (The article, by the way, sounds like a PR piece for someone expecting to patent a technology that, by the same arguments we use against software patents, probably shouldn't be patentable, because it's an obvious rearrangement of existing technology. I shall elucidate.)
1. Yes, it's difficult to run wideband amps in class C. Class C works best with a single frequency at a constant level.
(To illustrate: my wideband HD transmitter, for example, must be re-biased to class AB. I can switch it to "pure" class-C FM mode and it puts out 2-3 times the power as when it's in HD mode.)
2. As a general rule: designing an efficient amplifier becomes more difficult the higher the frequency. Wireless phones run at high frequencies.
(To illustrate: class D switching amps have made it possible for your teenage son to have 1,000 watts of audio in his Nissan Sentra. But you must use a switching frequency that's much higher than the signal -- easy to do with audio, not so easy with even just an 800-900 MHz wireless signal.)
3. Read the fine print and look beyond the smoke.
We just went with Modulation Dependent Carrier Level (MDCL) on our 50,000 watt AM, and it has indeed cut our power bill substantially, which is strikingly analogous to what these people are proposing. But this is highly dependent on modulation (i.e., what we're "playing" at any given moment, whether music or voice) and other factors.
In this case, if they're obtaining the higher efficiency by "smoothly" switching between standby and active modes, one wonders how efficient it will be during rush hour, when everyone is on the phone, calling their significant other to have dinner ready when they get home. :)