"Over the years, Diaconis and his students and colleagues have successfully analyzed the effectiveness of almost every type of shuffle people use in ordinary life."
All Shuffles? What about the Truffle Shuffle? After all, that is the most important shuffle I can come up with.
Unfortunately, many schools are having a hard time paying their teachers, let alone a competent IT staff. Such advancements are rarely possible without the proper technical support. Maybe if we could get the federal and state governments to actually fund schools, we could move them into the 21st century.
This has been done several years ago by United Nuclear (http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/). For a while they had a sports car of some kind running with this kind of system. Now they're testing to begin selling home hydrogen generation systems, and car conversion kits. They're in the final stages of fleet testing their systems now.
You're complaining about invasive government control, and then proposing using the same level of invasive control on your children. How about trying a little thing called "parenting" before putting your kids in lockdown? Teach them to ask before using the car, to be selective about the quality of people they consider friends, and not to lie to you when you ask them where they are going. Raise decent kids, and this level of control is not needed.
Maybe if it wasn't also against the rules to bring in blank media, then your point would be a good one. Unfortunately, in my office (Air Force Intelligence), it is.
Exactly. In order for it to be a realistic game, there should be the capacity to be a thief. There are several games that have a thief class. Therefore, he's playing the game exactly as it was designed to be played. Now, the fact that he's using a bot is a problem, but that wasn't the point of the article. The fact that you can get real money for virtual items speaks more to a problem with today's society, rather than an issue with the guy. He just found a way to make his perfectly legal (minus the bot) gameplay pay off.
I think that would fall under the warning of "don't put all of your eggs into one basket." One thing (your cable line) goes out, and you're down television, internet, and phone. Then what do you do? Also, how do you call the company to let them know that your internet is down?
I'm not at all claiming that launching vehicles is a risky venture. As a matter of fact, my statement made it clear that I completely understand how risky it is. What I'm trying to say is that delaying the space program indefinitely because one of those inevitable mistakes actually happened this time is foolish. By all means, take all necessary precautions, but do not delay the future of mankind because of a chunk of ice. The people who died in that disaster risked their lives in space because they believed that it was important for humans to be in space, to shutdown that program in light of their sacrifice is a stain on their memory.
I think the shuttle needs to be redesigned, and has needed to be for 20 years. However, this cannot happen on the shoestring budget that is given to NASA. Until the funding matches the ambition, the best we can do is half-assed.
My overall point is not that we "just need to be brave," but that we need to not be paranoic about it. The shuttle can be excellently designed and thouroghly tested, and still fail, those are the facts of life. Testing and retesting can still fail to miss the one flawed part. So, while we are wasting years of time and millions of dollars investigating the failure of a part that no one could have predicted would fail despite infinite testing, we could have been exploring and benefitting from space.
Cable companies and phone companies can provide broadband without interference to the RF community because their lines don't radiate interferance. In the cable company's case, this is because their lines are coaxial, with a grounded shield around them. In the phone company's case, this is because their lines are balanced (twisted pair), which serves to eliminate RF radiation. In the case of power companies however, their lines are large hunks of unshielded unbalanced copper, with nothing but a protective layer of PVC on them. Due to the laws physics, these _will_ radiate. There is no way to keep this from happening. Notching can attenuate those signals to a certain degree, but _cannot_ eliminate them. Even if you put a -50dB notch filter on a 100W signal, you're still going to be radiating ~300mW, which in terms of radio reception is a hell of a lot when the radiator is 10 feet away from your antenna.
This affects much more than ham radio. The benefits of ham radio in emergencies has already been stated, so I won't elaborate. However, this will also interfere with marine ship-to-shore radio, international shortwave broadcasts, aircraft radio, long-distance military radio, long-distance satellite telemetry (mars rovers), and animal tag tracking, among other things. This is just an overall Bad Thing (tm).
Not to mention that the power companies' (and pres. bush's) claims about the awesomeness of BPL are wildly exaggerated. They claim that this technology will solve the problems of backwoods homes not having broadband available. What is it that keeps these homes from getting cable or DSL? The cost of extending the equipment out to one or two rural customers versus extending it to a condominium development. The companies don't spend the money to equip the rural lines with the technology because there isn't a large enough profit to be had. THIS WILL STILL BE THE CASE WITH BPL. BPL still needs local-level equipment upgrades to function. These upgrades are expensive. They will not upgrade small-customer-volume areas, such as the same rural areas that cable and DSL stay away from. Therefore, BPL will not fix the problems that it claims to be addressing.
Anyway, those are the facts as I know them, take them for what they're worth.
Jeremy Burgess, KC8OOM (ham radio operator and electrical engineer)
As I see it are the two things limiting advancements in the space program. It's all well and good for Bush to say that he wants to see people on Mars soon, but unless he funds the department who's job it is to make that happen, it's just not realistic. When we are spending billions upon billions of dollars fighting ill-advised wars, and only spending a miniscule fraction on expanding mankind's space future, hollow words spoken during a campaign mean nothing. When he turns around and mandates the retirement of the current shuttle fleet, without providing the immensely increased funding necessary to support the design and development of a new vehicle, then all we're going to get for our efforts is another flawed shuttle that was pushed out the door on a shoestring budget. Until the money matches the ambition, nothing will come of it.
The other thing limiting our success is blind paranoia. People need to realize that accidents happen. When you strap people onto a gigantic tank full of hydrogen and oxygen, controlled by a myriad of complex (and aging, see above) systems, and then light the damn thing, occasionally something is going to go wrong. This is reality, and the astronauts are well aware of this. They accept the risk that they take, and they know the possible consequences of that risk. Unfortunately, this is unacceptable for the people sitting at home in their armchairs watching the launch on television. They simply can't accept that one out of every hundred of these launches is naturally going to end in disaster. When you think of all the things during a launch that could go wrong, it's damned impressive that every other shuttle launch doesn't blow up on the pad. Until the general public can learn that sometimes failure is part of success, then we will have countless hours of mission time consumed by petty things like astronauts pulling pieces of fabric out of tiles, which would have come out on their own. Push the scared little know-it-alls out of the way, and let the risk takers make some advancements.
One of the things that the morse tests were most useful for was a weed-out factor. It's the people who were really dedicated to learning and participating in amateur radio that were willing to devote the time and effort necessary to learn the code. That preserved the HF bands for those who are serious about radio. Aside from that, Morse Code (or CW, as it's also known) is one of the most reliable methods of communication out there. If absolutely nothing else will get through (voice, packet, etc.), Morse Code will. Heck, you don't even need a radio to use Morse Code to communicate in emergencies (see MacGyver, pilot episode, or the Titanic's last desperate attempts (NOT the movie)). As far as I'm concerned, the primary reason for continued existance of amateur radio, is for training a pool of professional operators for times of disaster, or general need of the public. To remove a tried-and-true, absolutely reliable method of communications from that pool of training is a mistake. While I got my extra class license after the code requirements were dropped to 5WPM, I am glad that I still had to learn the code, and would have gladly worked it up to 21WPM if it had been required. Also, the new legislation makes it an automatic upgrade from Tech to General if this movement is passed. That's rediculous, there was a testing requirement too! The knowledge of FCC rules, antenna theory, and electronics needed to get a technician class license is nothing compared to that needed for a general class license, they should not automatically upgrade techs to generals, make them study for it at least, don't just go handing out free priviledges. I think the FCC will be making a monumental mistake if they remove the Morse Code requirement.
http://www.thehouseontherock.com/html/attraction.h tm The House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin, has numerous automated instruments, including a fully automated symphony orchestra. It's been about 15 years since I was there, but I remember it being pretty impressive at the time.
Actually, we do much more than carry random individual messages of "I'm ok," although that is also an important part. The primary concern is health and welfare traffic. This means that we coordinate information between the disaster area and the relief organizations. You mentioned that there would have to be serious pre-disaster networks and agreements set up. There indeed are. The Red Cross is tied into the amateur radio world, and works very closely with us. We train regularly, through events and practice nets coordinated through the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), and the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES). Just recently, the Simulated Emergency Test took place here in my county. We absolutely do ferry critical rescue and operations traffic, and we do have serious pre-disaster networks and training. You're right in that a single ham radio operator on his or her own is not going to be that useful, but when that operator is tied into the network of millions of hams across the globe (over 600,000 in the US alone), that one operator can be a powerful lifesaving force. And yes, once the highly important stuff is taken care of, we are still there to relay "I'm ok" messages from those stuck in disaster areas to those on the outside who are concerned, through the National Traffic System (NTS). I hope this gives you a better picture of the true value of ham radio in situations like this.
Unfortunately, in many of the labs here at the University of Dayton, remote desktop is disabled, and there are no install rights. Therefore, RD is effectively out of the question. At the same time, I love RD, and use it from other computers. The frustrating thing is that it logs you out of the computer, so you can't use RD on one computer, and then go use VNC on another, you just come up to a black screen on login. Quite frustrating.
If she's going to the University of Dayton, in Dayton, OH, I would highly recommend the Mace, although I don't think you're allowed to carry a stun gun.
I currently use one of those new Qualcomm thinphones. It's very nice. My one recommendation would be to get a phone capable of digital. It's a lot clearer than analog, plus with the digital carrier, those phones have a lot more options, like buit in caller ID and stuff. My favorite phone, which I wish I could afford is the StarTAC, very nice, lots of options (with the digital model), and VERY small. I'm with Airtouch, and I pay $30 a month for 100 minutes, and no long distance and no roaming. Not bad.
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"Over the years, Diaconis and his students and colleagues have successfully analyzed the effectiveness of almost every type of shuffle people use in ordinary life."
All Shuffles? What about the Truffle Shuffle? After all, that is the most important shuffle I can come up with.
Unfortunately, many schools are having a hard time paying their teachers, let alone a competent IT staff. Such advancements are rarely possible without the proper technical support. Maybe if we could get the federal and state governments to actually fund schools, we could move them into the 21st century.
Except that in most reasonable schools, an F is the result of a score of 60% or below, so an F does not necessarily imply zero effort.
This has been done several years ago by United Nuclear (http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/). For a while they had a sports car of some kind running with this kind of system. Now they're testing to begin selling home hydrogen generation systems, and car conversion kits. They're in the final stages of fleet testing their systems now.
You're complaining about invasive government control, and then proposing using the same level of invasive control on your children. How about trying a little thing called "parenting" before putting your kids in lockdown? Teach them to ask before using the car, to be selective about the quality of people they consider friends, and not to lie to you when you ask them where they are going. Raise decent kids, and this level of control is not needed.
Maybe if it wasn't also against the rules to bring in blank media, then your point would be a good one. Unfortunately, in my office (Air Force Intelligence), it is.
Exactly. In order for it to be a realistic game, there should be the capacity to be a thief. There are several games that have a thief class. Therefore, he's playing the game exactly as it was designed to be played. Now, the fact that he's using a bot is a problem, but that wasn't the point of the article. The fact that you can get real money for virtual items speaks more to a problem with today's society, rather than an issue with the guy. He just found a way to make his perfectly legal (minus the bot) gameplay pay off.
I think that would fall under the warning of "don't put all of your eggs into one basket." One thing (your cable line) goes out, and you're down television, internet, and phone. Then what do you do? Also, how do you call the company to let them know that your internet is down?
I'm not at all claiming that launching vehicles is a risky venture. As a matter of fact, my statement made it clear that I completely understand how risky it is. What I'm trying to say is that delaying the space program indefinitely because one of those inevitable mistakes actually happened this time is foolish. By all means, take all necessary precautions, but do not delay the future of mankind because of a chunk of ice. The people who died in that disaster risked their lives in space because they believed that it was important for humans to be in space, to shutdown that program in light of their sacrifice is a stain on their memory.
I think the shuttle needs to be redesigned, and has needed to be for 20 years. However, this cannot happen on the shoestring budget that is given to NASA. Until the funding matches the ambition, the best we can do is half-assed.
My overall point is not that we "just need to be brave," but that we need to not be paranoic about it. The shuttle can be excellently designed and thouroghly tested, and still fail, those are the facts of life. Testing and retesting can still fail to miss the one flawed part. So, while we are wasting years of time and millions of dollars investigating the failure of a part that no one could have predicted would fail despite infinite testing, we could have been exploring and benefitting from space.
Here's the problem in a nutshell:
Cable companies and phone companies can provide broadband without interference to the RF community because their lines don't radiate interferance. In the cable company's case, this is because their lines are coaxial, with a grounded shield around them. In the phone company's case, this is because their lines are balanced (twisted pair), which serves to eliminate RF radiation. In the case of power companies however, their lines are large hunks of unshielded unbalanced copper, with nothing but a protective layer of PVC on them. Due to the laws physics, these _will_ radiate. There is no way to keep this from happening. Notching can attenuate those signals to a certain degree, but _cannot_ eliminate them. Even if you put a -50dB notch filter on a 100W signal, you're still going to be radiating ~300mW, which in terms of radio reception is a hell of a lot when the radiator is 10 feet away from your antenna.
This affects much more than ham radio. The benefits of ham radio in emergencies has already been stated, so I won't elaborate. However, this will also interfere with marine ship-to-shore radio, international shortwave broadcasts, aircraft radio, long-distance military radio, long-distance satellite telemetry (mars rovers), and animal tag tracking, among other things. This is just an overall Bad Thing (tm).
Not to mention that the power companies' (and pres. bush's) claims about the awesomeness of BPL are wildly exaggerated. They claim that this technology will solve the problems of backwoods homes not having broadband available. What is it that keeps these homes from getting cable or DSL? The cost of extending the equipment out to one or two rural customers versus extending it to a condominium development. The companies don't spend the money to equip the rural lines with the technology because there isn't a large enough profit to be had. THIS WILL STILL BE THE CASE WITH BPL. BPL still needs local-level equipment upgrades to function. These upgrades are expensive. They will not upgrade small-customer-volume areas, such as the same rural areas that cable and DSL stay away from. Therefore, BPL will not fix the problems that it claims to be addressing.
Anyway, those are the facts as I know them, take them for what they're worth.
Jeremy Burgess, KC8OOM (ham radio operator and electrical engineer)
As I see it are the two things limiting advancements in the space program. It's all well and good for Bush to say that he wants to see people on Mars soon, but unless he funds the department who's job it is to make that happen, it's just not realistic. When we are spending billions upon billions of dollars fighting ill-advised wars, and only spending a miniscule fraction on expanding mankind's space future, hollow words spoken during a campaign mean nothing. When he turns around and mandates the retirement of the current shuttle fleet, without providing the immensely increased funding necessary to support the design and development of a new vehicle, then all we're going to get for our efforts is another flawed shuttle that was pushed out the door on a shoestring budget. Until the money matches the ambition, nothing will come of it.
The other thing limiting our success is blind paranoia. People need to realize that accidents happen. When you strap people onto a gigantic tank full of hydrogen and oxygen, controlled by a myriad of complex (and aging, see above) systems, and then light the damn thing, occasionally something is going to go wrong. This is reality, and the astronauts are well aware of this. They accept the risk that they take, and they know the possible consequences of that risk. Unfortunately, this is unacceptable for the people sitting at home in their armchairs watching the launch on television. They simply can't accept that one out of every hundred of these launches is naturally going to end in disaster. When you think of all the things during a launch that could go wrong, it's damned impressive that every other shuttle launch doesn't blow up on the pad. Until the general public can learn that sometimes failure is part of success, then we will have countless hours of mission time consumed by petty things like astronauts pulling pieces of fabric out of tiles, which would have come out on their own. Push the scared little know-it-alls out of the way, and let the risk takers make some advancements.
One of the things that the morse tests were most useful for was a weed-out factor. It's the people who were really dedicated to learning and participating in amateur radio that were willing to devote the time and effort necessary to learn the code. That preserved the HF bands for those who are serious about radio.
Aside from that, Morse Code (or CW, as it's also known) is one of the most reliable methods of communication out there. If absolutely nothing else will get through (voice, packet, etc.), Morse Code will. Heck, you don't even need a radio to use Morse Code to communicate in emergencies (see MacGyver, pilot episode, or the Titanic's last desperate attempts (NOT the movie)).
As far as I'm concerned, the primary reason for continued existance of amateur radio, is for training a pool of professional operators for times of disaster, or general need of the public. To remove a tried-and-true, absolutely reliable method of communications from that pool of training is a mistake.
While I got my extra class license after the code requirements were dropped to 5WPM, I am glad that I still had to learn the code, and would have gladly worked it up to 21WPM if it had been required. Also, the new legislation makes it an automatic upgrade from Tech to General if this movement is passed. That's rediculous, there was a testing requirement too! The knowledge of FCC rules, antenna theory, and electronics needed to get a technician class license is nothing compared to that needed for a general class license, they should not automatically upgrade techs to generals, make them study for it at least, don't just go handing out free priviledges.
I think the FCC will be making a monumental mistake if they remove the Morse Code requirement.
http://www.thehouseontherock.com/html/attraction.h tm
The House on the Rock in Spring Green, Wisconsin, has numerous automated instruments, including a fully automated symphony orchestra. It's been about 15 years since I was there, but I remember it being pretty impressive at the time.
Actually, we do much more than carry random individual messages of "I'm ok," although that is also an important part. The primary concern is health and welfare traffic. This means that we coordinate information between the disaster area and the relief organizations. You mentioned that there would have to be serious pre-disaster networks and agreements set up. There indeed are. The Red Cross is tied into the amateur radio world, and works very closely with us. We train regularly, through events and practice nets coordinated through the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES), and the Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service (RACES). Just recently, the Simulated Emergency Test took place here in my county. We absolutely do ferry critical rescue and operations traffic, and we do have serious pre-disaster networks and training. You're right in that a single ham radio operator on his or her own is not going to be that useful, but when that operator is tied into the network of millions of hams across the globe (over 600,000 in the US alone), that one operator can be a powerful lifesaving force. And yes, once the highly important stuff is taken care of, we are still there to relay "I'm ok" messages from those stuck in disaster areas to those on the outside who are concerned, through the National Traffic System (NTS). I hope this gives you a better picture of the true value of ham radio in situations like this.
Unfortunately, in many of the labs here at the University of Dayton, remote desktop is disabled, and there are no install rights. Therefore, RD is effectively out of the question. At the same time, I love RD, and use it from other computers. The frustrating thing is that it logs you out of the computer, so you can't use RD on one computer, and then go use VNC on another, you just come up to a black screen on login. Quite frustrating.
Is it really?
Tad Williams' Otherland series is absolutely incredible, I'm about halfway through it right now, and I'm loving it!!
If she's going to the University of Dayton, in Dayton, OH, I would highly recommend the Mace, although I don't think you're allowed to carry a stun gun.
And they will give you a blank, rather dull stare and say "Uh.... look over on that wall."
I currently use one of those new Qualcomm thinphones. It's very nice. My one recommendation would be to get a phone capable of digital. It's a lot clearer than analog, plus with the digital carrier, those phones have a lot more options, like buit in caller ID and stuff. My favorite phone, which I wish I could afford is the StarTAC, very nice, lots of options (with the digital model), and VERY small. I'm with Airtouch, and I pay $30 a month for 100 minutes, and no long distance and no roaming. Not bad.