The benefits for irridium are not in populated areas, but those literally in the middle of nowhere. ( say, the middle of the Sahara desert, or central Alaska )
Irridium was (is?) an advance over traditional satellite phones, at a significantly reduced price.
While cheap, that price was not enough to increase demand to the point of profitability.
It's a little broader.... the FAQ says it gets the masters from the large record companies.
My guess it's anything the major records companies produce ( and the site trys to sell ).
Give them a break... the technology sounds pretty amazing, but there are limits. How do you expect them to recognize the college garage band? ( and why would they want to, since they are trying to sell records.)
I bet they would be willing to accept a MP3 of the garage band to put in their database.
According to the FAQ there is nothing for the station to do. A device monitors the station and uses some sort of "music recognition" software to compare it against their database.
Pretty amazing...
cheap low tech != bad
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
Ok, computerized voting is cool.. but why?
In Dallas County, TX we voted with a black permanent ink marker filling in ovals on a form. Previous years, we used the punch the hole method.
In FL the problem was not the punch method, but a stupid ballot layout. (allegidly approved by party officials.) Humans did that... if we had a computer interface, some idiot could design a confusing interface too.
The black marker is cheap, easy to understand, easy to count (optically automated) and easy to recount. If your precient doesn't have the volume to justify an optical scanner, all you have to do is carry the ballots to someplace that does. If all the ballot machines are knocked out by a EMP, you could still count them by hand.
What's the benefit of electronic voting at a polling place? A machine already tabulates them. If you want faster results, network the tabulating machines. Electronic voting seems like a huge investment for little gain.
Offiste voting is another issue. Personnaly, I don't the think the fraud potential outweighs the convience factor. Is it that big a deal to go to a polling place a few times a year? If you're out of town, methods already exist to deal with that.
You can have the benifits of automation without automating the whole process.
Being on-call has been part of the last few jobs I've had. I'm excempt and have never gotten pager-pay.
As a system admin, you have a vested interest in making things run well. If you're good, you shouldn't get too many pages. Non emergency stuff should be handled by a night person or have it wait until morning.
If you're pager goes off in the middle of the night, you shouldn't be expected to show up in the morning. Not on time anyway.
For my employers it's also been a two way street. If things are running well and I want to take my daughter to the park, I go. 24/7 support doesn't necessarily mean the end of family life, it can improve it.
Re:GPG offers command line, PGP didn't
on
GPG vs. PGP?
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· Score: 1
No, I don't remember looking at that.
I'm very pleased with GPG, but just for grins I took a quick look at their site and didn't see a simple utility to encrypt and decript a *FILE*. Not email, not desktop, a simple file. (ASCII even!)
The program also needed to run on PC's as well as Unix boxes. Looks like I made the right decision to wait for GPG.
GPG offers command line, PGP didn't
on
GPG vs. PGP?
·
· Score: 1
About a 1.5 years ago I was looking for a solution to encrypt data before sending it over the Internet.
Naturally I first thought of PGP. A free version was available which would have suited my needs, but it was not available for commerical use. No problem, I had a budget, so I called Network Associates. It took 2 months to get them to sell me a Solaris version, but when I tried to decode it on Windows, it seems they didn't offer a command line interface ( and couldn't due to some "patent" crap. )
I ended up using poor security ( pkzip ) until GPG was ready for production use. I've been using GPG for 6-8 months and it works flawlessly. Now I have my command line, hard encryption, and even got to keep my budget!
Slashdot Mirror
I doubt anyone would come in to compete with the current cable company anyway. Look how much pressure the local government has keeping rates down.
It's really a case where the government gets to levy a 5% tax for little if any work.
Robert
IIRC, they used this technology at the Superbowl.
How many criminals did it detect? How many where caught?
There was a lot of press about it before the game, but I don't recall *ANYTHING* about how well it worked.
It may all by hype.
I downloaded firmware version ( 1.37.9b, Jun 21 2001 ) from DSLREPORTs and it fixed my SecureRemote problem!!
It may fix the Linux problem as well.
Robert
I'm not running Linux, but I can't use my Checkpoint VPN software over wireless, probably because of the same issue. Robert
>> no notification before the money is withdrawn from your account
This is the guy's fault for using a Debit card. Never, ever use a Debit card. If your bank sends you one, send it back and demand a ATM (with PIN).
With the exception of folks with bad credit, there is *ZERO* benefit to the consumer for a credit card. Lots of risk, no benefit.
Get a card with a 20+ day grace and set up direct draft to pay the amount in full every month. All the benefits none of the risk.
If you're credit is that bad... well... better be *VERY* carefull, and get a CREDIT card ASAP.
Oh yea.... READ THE CONTRACTS BEFORE YOU SIGN!
The benefits for irridium are not in populated areas, but those literally in the middle of nowhere. ( say, the middle of the Sahara desert, or central Alaska )
Irridium was (is?) an advance over traditional satellite phones, at a significantly reduced price.
While cheap, that price was not enough to increase demand to the point of profitability.
Robert
Finally this got mentioned.
It's a sign of the state of Ham Radio that this got mentioned so far into the thread.
Unfortunately, I'm part of the problem not the solution. I haven't had a working rig in 6 years.
Maybe in a few years once my kids are above toddler stage I'll have more time to become active. I'll try to even get them licensed!
Robert - N5GWY
Santa?
Sure I know the dude... I coded with him.
Doesn't even use a compiler. Hex editor is all he needs. Used to code in binary, but found it wore out his keyboard too fast.
Santa's one hoopy frood!
Robert
It's a little broader.... the FAQ says it gets the masters from the large record companies.
My guess it's anything the major records companies produce ( and the site trys to sell ).
Give them a break... the technology sounds pretty amazing, but there are limits. How do you expect them to recognize the college garage band? ( and why would they want to, since they are trying to sell records.)
I bet they would be willing to accept a MP3 of the garage band to put in their database.
according to their FAQ, a device samples the music and compares it to a database of "masters" obtained from the record companies.
I guess it's "music recognition". Music fingerprinting... interesting...
Robert
---
According to the FAQ there is nothing for the station to do. A device monitors the station and uses some sort of "music recognition" software to compare it against their database.
Pretty amazing...
Ok, computerized voting is cool.. but why?
In Dallas County, TX we voted with a black permanent ink marker filling in ovals on a form. Previous years, we used the punch the hole method.
In FL the problem was not the punch method, but a stupid ballot layout. (allegidly approved by party officials.) Humans did that... if we had a computer interface, some idiot could design a confusing interface too.
The black marker is cheap, easy to understand, easy to count (optically automated) and easy to recount. If your precient doesn't have the volume to justify an optical scanner, all you have to do is carry the ballots to someplace that does. If all the ballot machines are knocked out by a EMP, you could still count them by hand.
What's the benefit of electronic voting at a polling place? A machine already tabulates them. If you want faster results, network the tabulating machines. Electronic voting seems like a huge investment for little gain.
Offiste voting is another issue. Personnaly, I don't the think the fraud potential outweighs the convience factor. Is it that big a deal to go to a polling place a few times a year? If you're out of town, methods already exist to deal with that.
You can have the benifits of automation without automating the whole process.
---
Funnyest thing I've seen in ages.
Send to rec.humor.funny and you'll be famous.
Give that man some more options!
---
Being on-call has been part of the last few jobs I've had. I'm excempt and have never gotten pager-pay.
As a system admin, you have a vested interest in making things run well. If you're good, you shouldn't get too many pages. Non emergency stuff should be handled by a night person or have it wait until morning.
If you're pager goes off in the middle of the night, you shouldn't be expected to show up in the morning. Not on time anyway.
For my employers it's also been a two way street. If things are running well and I want to take my daughter to the park, I go. 24/7 support doesn't necessarily mean the end of family life, it can improve it.
No, I don't remember looking at that.
I'm very pleased with GPG, but just for grins I took a quick look at their site and didn't see a simple utility to encrypt and decript a *FILE*. Not email, not desktop, a simple file. (ASCII even!)
The program also needed to run on PC's as well as Unix boxes. Looks like I made the right decision to wait for GPG.
About a 1.5 years ago I was looking for a solution to encrypt data before sending it over the Internet.
Naturally I first thought of PGP. A free version was available which would have suited my needs, but it was not available for commerical use. No problem, I had a budget, so I called Network Associates. It took 2 months to get them to sell me a Solaris version, but when I tried to decode it on Windows, it seems they didn't offer a command line interface ( and couldn't due to some "patent" crap. )
I ended up using poor security ( pkzip ) until GPG was ready for production use. I've been using GPG for 6-8 months and it works flawlessly. Now I have my command line, hard encryption, and even got to keep my budget!
Robert