See the 'Electronics on Board' section: http://www.faa.gov/passengers/flyingsafe.cfm
The FCC and FAA ban cell phones for airborne use because its signals could interfere with critical aircraft instruments.
My relative at the FAA who has 25 years of civilian airline experience before working at FAA tells me that the 'critical instruments' in question are indeed the ground radar.
if somebody crashes the plane
Well it's nice to see that you read my post before replying. CELL PHONES DO NOT CAUSE THE PLANE TO CRASH. WHICH PART OF THAT WASN'T CLEAR? By interfering with the above ground radar landings can be MUCH harder but any pilot good enough to get a license won't actually crash the damn plane for crying out loud. Hard landings have all kinds of implications, from someone bumping their head to a faster maintenance cycle for important (and expensive) parts like the landing gear assemblies.
I'm reminded of the STNG episode where the people who were in cryogenic suspension were revived. The bad caricature of the business magnate used the intercom and the captain fussed at him for using it. 'Why isn't there a lock on it?' asked the magnate. 'Because we're capable of exercising control,' replied the captain. How pathetic that people can't just turn off their phones on planes without needing them to be confiscated and/or banned.
If cell phones caused planes to fall out of the sky
Cell phones obviously don't cause planes to fall from the sky; what they DO do is a lot of them interfere with the altitude above ground radar. While cruising at 35,000 feet on a clear day it isn't usually a big deal because the air pressure altimeter can serve just fine. But when taking off and landing (especially) it's VERY important that the pilot know exactly how far it is to the ground within a fraction of an inch and not withing a couple of feet (which can happen if a certain model cel phone is interfering with the radar).
the "AMD developer" you spoke to doesn't know what he's talking about
That's odd; I was in his office (where I used to work at the next door down the hall) at AMD's facility just three weeks ago fiddling with WinCE on an old prototype of exactly the computer in question. And since he worked on both the regular BIOS for the Geode chip as well as the idiot boot loader, I guess you're right: that web page talking about trusted security which doesn't mention this computer AT ALL must be what is going on. Furthermore, the original article is about someone who can boot both Windows AND Linux on a different model based on the same chip because that manufacturer DID want a real BIOS.
OK, having spoken with an AMD developer about this box, it turns out the thing has an idiot boot loader and not a regular BIOS. So that's why the end user cannot convince the thing to boot out of the box Linux. Feel free to modify an embedded type Linux to boot from a boot loader expecting to find WinCE. While probably tedious, not impossible. Furthermore, by not bothering to develop a BIOS for it, AMD saved more than enough worker-hours to justify the (very) cheap price of WinCE.
No one in the Linux community is up for spending megabig bucks subsidizing low cost, low power PC hardware for the third world as a tax incentive or philanthropic gesture. Even at this thing's low base cost it still needs a display, kb, mouse, a way to get electrical power; nevermind a 'net access method and associated fees. All this adds up and the really poor people of the world could use a little help. So putting an MS product on it draws in a certain company and foundation with plenty of ready cash. Far from a tax, I'm certain there's going to be a MS subsidy.
Look at the target market kids; some village in inner Mongolia or northeastern India saves up to buy a computer with the help of a government grant. The first thing that happens is someone accidentally screws up the BIOS settings or downloads and installs some flakey software. Wanna guess how easy it is to get a tech out to fix it? Be serious and stop your whining about WinCE and no BIOS access. It obviously isn't for you. The thing's capabilitis in terms of software/firmware were very carefully considered in light of its target demographic.
his vision of affordable housing that the world's people can build for themselves
Amazingly enough, if National Geographic is to be believed, people all over the world already make affordable housing from local materials. Size, design, and material vary widely; is it because there is no standardization that there needs to be a 'fix'?
It is lousy and/or outright corrupt local government policies concerning real estate ownership that needs to be fixed in order for more people to afford and/or built homes in the first place. Please see _The Mystery of Capital_ by Hernando de Soto.
cheaper labor in countries such as India and China has resulted in pressure on U.S. manufacturers to outsource
That's cool with me; 9 American girls bopping to synth-pop aren't nearly as hot as 9 Indian girls gyrating to their respective traditional music. And if the 9 Chinese girls are in those long form-fitting Chinese dresses with the slits up the side... whoa momma!
And why is the principal source only those natural gas wells located in the American states?
Answer: dumb freakin' luck. Might as well ask why more rubies are in southeast Asia and why oil is in the mideast. And thanks to the helium being principally in the USA, the Hindneberg blew up because the Germans could only get their hands on hydrogen.
What's to stop a 1,000 year old man or woman from accumulating un unheard of amount of money
What stops 50 year olds from doing this now?
Read the HHGG: deposit a penny in a savings account and it becomes an absurd amount of money by the end of the universe. Anyway, if everyone is fabulously wealthy then inflation will kick into high gear and take care of it.
Ah, yes, having your picture taken while naked with dressed women present described as "torture"... I know people who PAY for that; it ain't torture. Nice try. It's stunning how sheltered you are if you think that's torture and equivalent to the institutionalized raping and mutilation that went on under the Bathists.
Parent is modded flamebait for what reason? Mentioning 'BestBuy'? If anything, it's 'insightful' as a commentary on how fast hdd price versus capacity drops over time.
Umm, >5 million dead in wars with Iran don't count? And don't blame the Americans for current deaths; almost all of the deaths now are the result of insurgents who are mostly from Saddam's ousted Bathists group.
The slashdot blurb is but a single sentence and yet you managed to not notice the part that says "email is used only for formal communications". Which part of messages to judges or opposing council for serious matters is not a formal communication?
And four other people with stunningly limited attention spans rated you "interesting" for this question!!!
People aren't irrational, regardless of what you might like to believe. Islamic militants have very good and ligitimate reasons for what they do
I notice you make this assertion yet provide no such reasons. Because there aren't any.
Suicide is irrational; it is intentionally removing yourself from the gene pool from that point on. While this is a good thing in some people's cases, it's exceptional rude to remove other people because of your own screwed up politics.
From the austronautix link: Yuri Andropov, immediately accused the United States of seeking to militarily dominate the Soviet Union
Umm, as opposed to Kruschev shouting 'we will crush you!' at a certain UN meeting? I think the attempts to dominate were on both sides, bud.
But seriously, folks, while the Russians are a little strange sometimes, one thing they definitely are is very rational. Despite all the posturing on both sides during the cold war (yes, even during the Cuban missile crisis), nuclear attacks were a threat tactic more than a real possibility. As opposed to the nutcases on the loose from the Islamo-fascist contingent today. Now those guys are NOT rational.
the latest peice of crap we found floating around in low orbit (that noone had a record of being up there
I'd say that was fairly unlikely. See, there are these satellites called 'launch detectors' the US military has that picks up rocket heat signature blooms within seconds anywhere in the world. So they know at least something is taking off and where it is going. And then there are these other things called 'telescopes' that let people on the ground look at things in space. Combine the two and while there might be some military satellite whose exact use is secret, there really isn't anything in orbit that isn't well known.
The breeders decided not to keep Fuji's fin on all day
I feel sorry for this unfortunate animal who certainly has no concept of artifical limbs or amputation to prevent the spread of disease. All it knows is that it can't normally swim and these landlubber mammals come along and fiddle with its back end, it can swim again for all of 20 minutes, then the sadistic bastards do something to take swimming away again. This is like the double or triple amputee dogs who drag themselves around in little carts. IMO it's a selfish act of self indulgence on the part of the humans. Mod me down if you will, but I think it's cruel to the animals.
Slashdot Mirror
That one was obvious. What wasn't so obvious was what the heck they meant by 'layed'. I had to look at that one a few beats before figuring it out.
See the 'Electronics on Board' section: http://www.faa.gov/passengers/flyingsafe.cfm
The FCC and FAA ban cell phones for airborne use because its signals could interfere with critical aircraft instruments.
My relative at the FAA who has 25 years of civilian airline experience before working at FAA tells me that the 'critical instruments' in question are indeed the ground radar.
if somebody crashes the plane
Well it's nice to see that you read my post before replying. CELL PHONES DO NOT CAUSE THE PLANE TO CRASH. WHICH PART OF THAT WASN'T CLEAR? By interfering with the above ground radar landings can be MUCH harder but any pilot good enough to get a license won't actually crash the damn plane for crying out loud. Hard landings have all kinds of implications, from someone bumping their head to a faster maintenance cycle for important (and expensive) parts like the landing gear assemblies.
I'm reminded of the STNG episode where the people who were in cryogenic suspension were revived. The bad caricature of the business magnate used the intercom and the captain fussed at him for using it. 'Why isn't there a lock on it?' asked the magnate. 'Because we're capable of exercising control,' replied the captain. How pathetic that people can't just turn off their phones on planes without needing them to be confiscated and/or banned.
If cell phones caused planes to fall out of the sky
Cell phones obviously don't cause planes to fall from the sky; what they DO do is a lot of them interfere with the altitude above ground radar. While cruising at 35,000 feet on a clear day it isn't usually a big deal because the air pressure altimeter can serve just fine. But when taking off and landing (especially) it's VERY important that the pilot know exactly how far it is to the ground within a fraction of an inch and not withing a couple of feet (which can happen if a certain model cel phone is interfering with the radar).
from Istanbul, or was he from Constantinople?
Funny?!? Heck, it's 'interesting'; he's from the future so they may well have switched the name back by then!
the "AMD developer" you spoke to doesn't know what he's talking about
That's odd; I was in his office (where I used to work at the next door down the hall) at AMD's facility just three weeks ago fiddling with WinCE on an old prototype of exactly the computer in question. And since he worked on both the regular BIOS for the Geode chip as well as the idiot boot loader, I guess you're right: that web page talking about trusted security which doesn't mention this computer AT ALL must be what is going on. Furthermore, the original article is about someone who can boot both Windows AND Linux on a different model based on the same chip because that manufacturer DID want a real BIOS.
OK, having spoken with an AMD developer about this box, it turns out the thing has an idiot boot loader and not a regular BIOS. So that's why the end user cannot convince the thing to boot out of the box Linux. Feel free to modify an embedded type Linux to boot from a boot loader expecting to find WinCE. While probably tedious, not impossible. Furthermore, by not bothering to develop a BIOS for it, AMD saved more than enough worker-hours to justify the (very) cheap price of WinCE.
I don't see the need to require the Microsoft tax
No one in the Linux community is up for spending megabig bucks subsidizing low cost, low power PC hardware for the third world as a tax incentive or philanthropic gesture. Even at this thing's low base cost it still needs a display, kb, mouse, a way to get electrical power; nevermind a 'net access method and associated fees. All this adds up and the really poor people of the world could use a little help. So putting an MS product on it draws in a certain company and foundation with plenty of ready cash. Far from a tax, I'm certain there's going to be a MS subsidy.
Look at the target market kids; some village in inner Mongolia or northeastern India saves up to buy a computer with the help of a government grant. The first thing that happens is someone accidentally screws up the BIOS settings or downloads and installs some flakey software. Wanna guess how easy it is to get a tech out to fix it? Be serious and stop your whining about WinCE and no BIOS access. It obviously isn't for you. The thing's capabilitis in terms of software/firmware were very carefully considered in light of its target demographic.
Oh, sure, like I don't get enough prophecies as plot devices in mediocre fantasy / sci-fi that you need to suggest some for the real world.
his vision of affordable housing that the world's people can build for themselves
Amazingly enough, if National Geographic is to be believed, people all over the world already make affordable housing from local materials. Size, design, and material vary widely; is it because there is no standardization that there needs to be a 'fix'?
It is lousy and/or outright corrupt local government policies concerning real estate ownership that needs to be fixed in order for more people to afford and/or built homes in the first place. Please see _The Mystery of Capital_ by Hernando de Soto.
cheaper labor in countries such as India and China has resulted in pressure on U.S. manufacturers to outsource
That's cool with me; 9 American girls bopping to synth-pop aren't nearly as hot as 9 Indian girls gyrating to their respective traditional music. And if the 9 Chinese girls are in those long form-fitting Chinese dresses with the slits up the side... whoa momma!
And why is the principal source only those natural gas wells located in the American states?
Answer: dumb freakin' luck. Might as well ask why more rubies are in southeast Asia and why oil is in the mideast.
And thanks to the helium being principally in the USA, the Hindneberg blew up because the Germans could only get their hands on hydrogen.
What's to stop a 1,000 year old man or woman from accumulating un unheard of amount of money
What stops 50 year olds from doing this now?
Read the HHGG: deposit a penny in a savings account and it becomes an absurd amount of money by the end of the universe. Anyway, if everyone is fabulously wealthy then inflation will kick into high gear and take care of it.
Ah, yes, having your picture taken while naked with dressed women present described as "torture"... I know people who PAY for that; it ain't torture. Nice try. It's stunning how sheltered you are if you think that's torture and equivalent to the institutionalized raping and mutilation that went on under the Bathists.
Parent is modded flamebait for what reason? Mentioning 'BestBuy'? If anything, it's 'insightful' as a commentary on how fast hdd price versus capacity drops over time.
Umm, >5 million dead in wars with Iran don't count? And don't blame the Americans for current deaths; almost all of the deaths now are the result of insurgents who are mostly from Saddam's ousted Bathists group.
And you misspelled 'liberating'.
I wonder how the legal community operates?
The slashdot blurb is but a single sentence and yet you managed to not notice the part that says "email is used only for formal communications". Which part of messages to judges or opposing council for serious matters is not a formal communication?
And four other people with stunningly limited attention spans rated you "interesting" for this question!!!
and the other responds "how come we never get any pork up here?"
Because orcs don't vote...
the wedding scene between Troy (sic) and Deanna
I've heard of 'love thy self' but isn't this taking it a bit too far? Still, sounds nicely kinky... too bad I didn't see that flick.
I now interview people for full time positions that are way over qualified
So do you do like all the other hiring people and tell them that they're overqualified so you won't hire them?
People aren't irrational, regardless of what you might like to believe. Islamic militants have very good and ligitimate reasons for what they do
I notice you make this assertion yet provide no such reasons. Because there aren't any.
Suicide is irrational; it is intentionally removing yourself from the gene pool from that point on. While this is a good thing in some people's cases, it's exceptional rude to remove other people because of your own screwed up politics.
From the austronautix link: Yuri Andropov, immediately accused the United States of seeking to militarily dominate the Soviet Union
Umm, as opposed to Kruschev shouting 'we will crush you!' at a certain UN meeting? I think the attempts to dominate were on both sides, bud.
But seriously, folks, while the Russians are a little strange sometimes, one thing they definitely are is very rational. Despite all the posturing on both sides during the cold war (yes, even during the Cuban missile crisis), nuclear attacks were a threat tactic more than a real possibility. As opposed to the nutcases on the loose from the Islamo-fascist contingent today. Now those guys are NOT rational.
the latest peice of crap we found floating around in low orbit (that noone had a record of being up there
I'd say that was fairly unlikely. See, there are these satellites called 'launch detectors' the US military has that picks up rocket heat signature blooms within seconds anywhere in the world. So they know at least something is taking off and where it is going. And then there are these other things called 'telescopes' that let people on the ground look at things in space. Combine the two and while there might be some military satellite whose exact use is secret, there really isn't anything in orbit that isn't well known.
The breeders decided not to keep Fuji's fin on all day
I feel sorry for this unfortunate animal who certainly has no concept of artifical limbs or amputation to prevent the spread of disease. All it knows is that it can't normally swim and these landlubber mammals come along and fiddle with its back end, it can swim again for all of 20 minutes, then the sadistic bastards do something to take swimming away again. This is like the double or triple amputee dogs who drag themselves around in little carts. IMO it's a selfish act of self indulgence on the part of the humans. Mod me down if you will, but I think it's cruel to the animals.