As much as I try to like Amazon.com, they keep pissing me off with their patents. What's next? Patenting buying books on the internet? Patenting online sales that are available 24 hours a day?
Stuff like this will only serve to stifle competition on the internet (which is probably the intent) and generally muck up internet commerce in general.
In a capitalistic society, greed is good, But Mr. Bezos is taking it a bit too far, I think.
I gotta agree with fishbowl. I do a lot of messing around with sounds apps (Cakewalk Sonar, Various software synths (NI B4, Steinberg, etc).
I used to use a Soundblaster LIVE Platinum (yes, I do a lot of gaming too), but the latency of that card was horrible. It was maddening trying to do anything real-time.
I ended up replacing the Live with a Audigy 2 Platinum and I'm amazed with the difference. I now have high quality sound with low latency as well as a firewire interface.
My first "real" amp was a '68 Fender Bassman with a 4X12 cabinet. Sounded really great, but was loud as hell. I tried taming it with a powersoak (resistive dummy load) but kept hearing that a powersoak will kill your amp. Then I bought a THC Hot Plate (an inductive/resistive dummy load) which was a HUGE improvement tonewise. The problem is still that the rig is tube powered and heavy and space intensive. And as much as I LOVE the tone of a tube amp, it will always sound the same way.
I decided to start looking at modeling amps. I bought a Korg Pandora as an easy way to have something that sounded like a variety of amps that I could carry in my pocket. After that, I made the leap and bought a Line6 Pod. I LOVE the pod!!!
It sounds a LOT like my Fender amp and a Marshall AND a Mesa Boogie AND a whole lot more amps than I could fit into a room and costs a WHOLE lot less.
Those with golden ears will always poo-poo modeling amps, but for us regular folk, modeling amps will let you play with sounds you couldn't achieve before.
Ever hear of web server access logs? Most ISPs also keep track of who has what IP when. Unless you limit yourself to editing your blog from the public library or from open WiFi access points, "the man" can find you and squash you when "they" feel it's appropriate.
I was the sole member of the IT shop for many years at a small company. Over the years, I ordered systems, software, services, did all of the installs and maintenance, wrote glue code, etc. Basically, I did it all. My philosophy was to prevent problems, rather than have to fix them.
When we brought in a new CEO, she began looking for ways to cut costs. I was slated to be on the chopping block because she "never saw me fixing anything". Luckily, I was saved by the management who realized that I was the only one who held things together (of course, they still didn't pay me squat since I was the only person who didn't have a degree and they were mostly PhDs and Masters of whatever). Once I ended up moved on to a higher paying job, they pretty much fell apart.
The lesson I suppose is that even if you've prevented all of the problems and the organization runs smoothly because of your efforts, you need to make your efforts visible. Sometimes, bragging isn't a bad thing.
Given that they're teetering on the edge of existance, most of the good people have long since fled.
I've being trying to find a competent person at Adelphia so I can get my cable internet service working. It's been weeks and they can't figure out why there's no return path for my signal. If they can't get that right, cable modem misconfiguration issues shouldn't be surprising either.
I'm beginning to question my decision to move from IDSL to cable.
Do I think I'll become a revolutionary? no... Not likely to happen. I keep guns because I like to target shoot (hunting doesn't agree with me, although I don't mind if others hunt humanely) and I'd like to be able to protect my family from anyone who breaks into my house and seeks to harm us (yes, I keep my guns locked up in a nice sturdy safe).
The theory of the second ammendment was that people have a right to self-defense as well as defense of the country (either from invaders or a repressive government). How likely are we to see either scenario? It's a long shot at best. But like they say, it's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it.
Plus, I know how much it irks the europeans and uber-liberals that I have them, so that's a benefit in itself.:)
If only the government has guns, then the people are pretty much out of luck.
Which is why the 2nd amendment exists. So the people (meaning individuals, not state-run militias) can rise up (after exhausting all legal means) and take control again.
It's hard to imagine babs boxer and George Allen getting together on anything, but this seems to be a good first step.
Last mile is the hardest nut to crack. Around these parts, Verizon hasn't delivered broadband to very many people (I suspect they're waiting for their competitors to die off first) and our cable provider (adelphia) is in chapter 11.
My only concern is that we need to ensure that nothing will interfere with the wireless data. 802.11 shares spectrum with too many things.
There are many different cell phone tracking technologies being developed for E911 purposes. They can also be used for other purposes (stolen car tracking/shipment tracking/finding bad guys/traffic probes):
1. GPS-enabled. The only problem is getting the satellites when you're under cover (trees/tall buildings/indoors) and it takes a while to sync up. You also MUST have a GPS on every phone you wish to track. I'll bet the cell phone manufacturers like this one the best.
2. Time difference of arrival (TDOA) is an infrastructure-based method that measures what time a particular signal hits different sets of antennas. Not especially resistant to multi-path and requires very accurate timing.
3. Phase angle of arrival. Measures the phase angle of incoming signals between the phone and different receiving sites. Triangulates and find the phone within 100 yards or so. Works pretty well in a multipath environment. Also infrastructure based.
Re:RN thinks different
on
Book on NR-1
·
· Score: 2
I believe it's possible to escape from deeper depths as well. I was always taught that we shouldn't say the ship can go any deeper than 400 feet. Hence, I tend to fudge a bit when discussing depths.
As a SCUBA diver, I have a pretty good handle on the physics involved and I'm pretty sure that as long as I don't have to worry about hytothermia, I'd be a surviver.
We had to do escape training while in Sub School in Groton, CT. I thought it was a hoot. I wanted to do it again.
Re:"No Escape"
on
Book on NR-1
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I've heard that it's possible to escape from a couple hundred feet, but the odds of your survival are pretty slim. The longer it takes from the time you begin to pressurize the escape trunk to when you begin your assent, the more likely it is that you're going to get a very bad case of the bends. If that doesn't get you, there's also a VERY good chance you'll hold your breath just a tiny bit and blow out a lung due to overpressurization during your assent.
In spite of what happened to the guys on the Kursk, most of the ocean is so fricking deep that your ship will crush LONG before you hit the bottom.
Hence, escape training is largly a waste of time.
When the ship crushes, the volume inside the ship gets VERY small, very quickly (think diesel engine). Everything bursts into flame, then you get hit in the face with a thousand piece of equipment, then the fire gets put out a split second later by tons of seawater. Fun...
Beats being shot and laying in a muddy ditch with your guts hanging out.....
Well.... It used to be true anyway... I was in from 76 through 82. I got out as an STS1(SS) (and it wasn't THAT hard to make first class).
I really loved what I did, but if you want a REAL life and a chance at a good marriage, you didn't want to be in boats. Most of the married guys I knew ended up getting divorced.
Joining the Navy was the second best thing I ever did. Getting out was the best (not counting having kids).
The people who are accepted into the submarine program are generally considered to be the cream-of-the-crop. They're pretty carefully screened to ensure you don't get a major nutcase.
I've only seen a few people who truely didn't fit, and they didn't last long before they were transfered to the surface Navy.
One problem with blindly dding images and compressing them is that "slack space" that previously contained data may be incompressible and will lead to large images unless the data is zeroed out first. The same problem will be seen when imaging swap space.
I wrote a utility for Solaris boxen that uses ufsdump and ufsrestore to do the same (as well as copying the disk layout (format.dat) via the format command). All mounted slices get gzipped and can be stored on NFS-mounted drives. When you restore, you can specify a different disk layout by changing the format.dat file prior to the restore. It takes about a half hour to dump a full solaris install with about a gig of other applications/data on the drive. Total image size is about 1.5 Gig.
I plan on writing a Linux flavor of the same utility, but dealing with icky PC drive formats will be a LOT harder than with SPARC Solaris drives.
That also depends on your beam shape. If one uses an antenna that receives a very narrow beam but has a lobe at 180 degrees in addition to one at 0 degrees (and is steerable), you'll be able to trianglulate easily on the signal unless the signal originates at or near a point between the two antennas. The error elipse would be rather elongated at that point. If the source was at 45 degrees relative to both antennas, your error elipse would be small and you'd have an accurate fix on their location.
When calculating position on range alone, two antenna sites will indeed result in two intersection points, but that's not really trianulation anyway.
I used to work for a company that developed many early patents on cell-phone localization.
Other than E911 applications and tracking bad guys/political dissidents, there are other "legimate" uses of cell phone location technology.
One biggie is to track phones randomly to determine which roads are being traveled and what the speed average speed is on that road. It's a neat way to implement a traffic probe.
Re:Easy prediction: It'll Never Happen.
on
The Coming Air Age
·
· Score: 2
I think that the general publics tendency towards idiocy is another limiting factor. It's bad enough letting them drive cars far more powerful then they need.
Imagine letting them move in one extra dimension.
We'd need to move underground to avoid the runners-up in the natural selection process as they rain from the sky.
Slashdot Mirror
As much as I try to like Amazon.com, they keep pissing me off with their patents. What's next? Patenting buying books on the internet? Patenting online sales that are available 24 hours a day?
Stuff like this will only serve to stifle competition on the internet (which is probably the intent) and generally muck up internet commerce in general.
In a capitalistic society, greed is good, But Mr. Bezos is taking it a bit too far, I think.
Time to start boycotting them.
I gotta agree with fishbowl. I do a lot of messing around with sounds apps (Cakewalk Sonar, Various software synths (NI B4, Steinberg, etc).
I used to use a Soundblaster LIVE Platinum (yes, I do a lot of gaming too), but the latency of that card was horrible. It was maddening trying to do anything real-time.
I ended up replacing the Live with a Audigy 2 Platinum and I'm amazed with the difference. I now have high quality sound with low latency as well as a firewire interface.
I'm happy. Your mileage may vary.
My first "real" amp was a '68 Fender Bassman with a 4X12 cabinet. Sounded really great, but was loud as hell. I tried taming it with a powersoak (resistive dummy load) but kept hearing that a powersoak will kill your amp. Then I bought a THC Hot Plate (an inductive/resistive dummy load) which was a HUGE improvement tonewise. The problem is still that the rig is tube powered and heavy and space intensive. And as much as I LOVE the tone of a tube amp, it will always sound the same way.
I decided to start looking at modeling amps. I bought a Korg Pandora as an easy way to have something that sounded like a variety of amps that I could carry in my pocket. After that, I made the leap and bought a Line6 Pod. I LOVE the pod!!!
It sounds a LOT like my Fender amp and a Marshall AND a Mesa Boogie AND a whole lot more amps than I could fit into a room and costs a WHOLE lot less.
Those with golden ears will always poo-poo modeling amps, but for us regular folk, modeling amps will let you play with sounds you couldn't achieve before.
No.. that was an IT guy after a visit by the Microsoft Licence Complience Nazis.
Well... there's always my old OS/2 docs....
An example:
The USS San Francisco has a hull number of SSN-711
The USS stands for United States Ship, the SSN means Nuclear-powered Attack Submarine, the 711 is the hull number.
There's also SSG and SSGN (for conventionally powered and nuclear-powered guided missle submarines)
Ever hear of web server access logs? Most ISPs also keep track of who has what IP when. Unless you limit yourself to editing your blog from the public library or from open WiFi access points, "the man" can find you and squash you when "they" feel it's appropriate.
I was the sole member of the IT shop for many years at a small company. Over the years, I ordered systems, software, services, did all of the installs and maintenance, wrote glue code, etc. Basically, I did it all. My philosophy was to prevent problems, rather than have to fix them.
When we brought in a new CEO, she began looking for ways to cut costs. I was slated to be on the chopping block because she "never saw me fixing anything". Luckily, I was saved by the management who realized that I was the only one who held things together (of course, they still didn't pay me squat since I was the only person who didn't have a degree and they were mostly PhDs and Masters of whatever). Once I ended up moved on to a higher paying job, they pretty much fell apart.
The lesson I suppose is that even if you've prevented all of the problems and the organization runs smoothly because of your efforts, you need to make your efforts visible. Sometimes, bragging isn't a bad thing.
Given that they're teetering on the edge of existance, most of the good people have long since fled.
I've being trying to find a competent person at Adelphia so I can get my cable internet service working. It's been weeks and they can't figure out why there's no return path for my signal. If they can't get that right, cable modem misconfiguration issues shouldn't be surprising either.
I'm beginning to question my decision to move from IDSL to cable.
Sheesh....
Want a ride in my uhm... Rocket Ship??!??!!! Only $12/hour!
Do I think I'll become a revolutionary? no... Not likely to happen. I keep guns because I like to target shoot (hunting doesn't agree with me, although I don't mind if others hunt humanely) and I'd like to be able to protect my family from anyone who breaks into my house and seeks to harm us (yes, I keep my guns locked up in a nice sturdy safe).
:)
The theory of the second ammendment was that people have a right to self-defense as well as defense of the country (either from invaders or a repressive government). How likely are we to see either scenario? It's a long shot at best. But like they say, it's better to have a gun and not need it than need a gun and not have it.
Plus, I know how much it irks the europeans and uber-liberals that I have them, so that's a benefit in itself.
That's not so far off the mark.
If only the government has guns, then the people are pretty much out of luck.
Which is why the 2nd amendment exists. So the people (meaning individuals, not state-run militias) can rise up (after exhausting all legal means) and take control again.
Step 1. Disguise bullets as a routine cocaine shipment...
Step 2. profit!!
Ahem.....
click here
It's hard to imagine babs boxer and George Allen getting together on anything, but this seems to be a good first step.
Last mile is the hardest nut to crack. Around these parts, Verizon hasn't delivered broadband to very many people (I suspect they're waiting for their competitors to die off first) and our cable provider (adelphia) is in chapter 11.
My only concern is that we need to ensure that nothing will interfere with the wireless data. 802.11 shares spectrum with too many things.
because it has nothing to do with cell phones?
There are many different cell phone tracking technologies being developed for E911 purposes. They can also be used for other purposes (stolen car tracking/shipment tracking/finding bad guys/traffic probes):
1. GPS-enabled. The only problem is getting the satellites when you're under cover (trees/tall buildings/indoors) and it takes a while to sync up. You also MUST have a GPS on every phone you wish to track. I'll bet the cell phone manufacturers like this one the best.
2. Time difference of arrival (TDOA) is an infrastructure-based method that measures what time a particular signal hits different sets of antennas. Not especially resistant to multi-path and requires very accurate timing.
3. Phase angle of arrival. Measures the phase angle of incoming signals between the phone and different receiving sites. Triangulates and find the phone within 100 yards or so. Works pretty well in a multipath environment. Also infrastructure based.
I believe it's possible to escape from deeper depths as well. I was always taught that we shouldn't say the ship can go any deeper than 400 feet. Hence, I tend to fudge a bit when discussing depths.
As a SCUBA diver, I have a pretty good handle on the physics involved and I'm pretty sure that as long as I don't have to worry about hytothermia, I'd be a surviver.
We had to do escape training while in Sub School in Groton, CT. I thought it was a hoot. I wanted to do it again.
I've heard that it's possible to escape from a couple hundred feet, but the odds of your survival are pretty slim. The longer it takes from the time you begin to pressurize the escape trunk to when you begin your assent, the more likely it is that you're going to get a very bad case of the bends. If that doesn't get you, there's also a VERY good chance you'll hold your breath just a tiny bit and blow out a lung due to overpressurization during your assent.
In spite of what happened to the guys on the Kursk, most of the ocean is so fricking deep that your ship will crush LONG before you hit the bottom.
Hence, escape training is largly a waste of time.
When the ship crushes, the volume inside the ship gets VERY small, very quickly (think diesel engine). Everything bursts into flame, then you get hit in the face with a thousand piece of equipment, then the fire gets put out a split second later by tons of seawater. Fun...
Beats being shot and laying in a muddy ditch with your guts hanging out.....
Well.... It used to be true anyway... I was in from 76 through 82. I got out as an STS1(SS) (and it wasn't THAT hard to make first class).
I really loved what I did, but if you want a REAL life and a chance at a good marriage, you didn't want to be in boats. Most of the married guys I knew ended up getting divorced.
Joining the Navy was the second best thing I ever did. Getting out was the best (not counting having kids).
Eyegor (the geek formerly known as "Jake")
The people who are accepted into the submarine program are generally considered to be the cream-of-the-crop. They're pretty carefully screened to ensure you don't get a major nutcase.
I've only seen a few people who truely didn't fit, and they didn't last long before they were transfered to the surface Navy.
Eyegor (plankowner, SSN-689, SSN-711)
One problem with blindly dding images and compressing them is that "slack space" that previously contained data may be incompressible and will lead to large images unless the data is zeroed out first. The same problem will be seen when imaging swap space.
I wrote a utility for Solaris boxen that uses ufsdump and ufsrestore to do the same (as well as copying the disk layout (format.dat) via the format command). All mounted slices get gzipped and can be stored on NFS-mounted drives. When you restore, you can specify a different disk layout by changing the format.dat file prior to the restore. It takes about a half hour to dump a full solaris install with about a gig of other applications/data on the drive. Total image size is about 1.5 Gig.
I plan on writing a Linux flavor of the same utility, but dealing with icky PC drive formats will be a LOT harder than with SPARC Solaris drives.
That also depends on your beam shape. If one uses an antenna that receives a very narrow beam but has a lobe at 180 degrees in addition to one at 0 degrees (and is steerable), you'll be able to trianglulate easily on the signal unless the signal originates at or near a point between the two antennas. The error elipse would be rather elongated at that point. If the source was at 45 degrees relative to both antennas, your error elipse would be small and you'd have an accurate fix on their location.
When calculating position on range alone, two antenna sites will indeed result in two intersection points, but that's not really trianulation anyway.
I used to work for a company that developed many early patents on cell-phone localization.
Other than E911 applications and tracking bad guys/political dissidents, there are other "legimate" uses of cell phone location technology.
One biggie is to track phones randomly to determine which roads are being traveled and what the speed average speed is on that road. It's a neat way to implement a traffic probe.
I think that the general publics tendency towards idiocy is another limiting factor. It's bad enough letting them drive cars far more powerful then they need.
Imagine letting them move in one extra dimension.
We'd need to move underground to avoid the runners-up in the natural selection process as they rain from the sky.
I could use it to hide my pr0n from my spousal unit.