Actually, I'm not. What I'm saying is that there are boom/bust business and technology cycles. It's simply a fact of the "high-technology" business. Eventually, the public loses that wide-eyed gee-whiz fascination with a new technology and the market settles back to something more sustainable.
There are still many engineers and IT workers out there. They love what they do and they move from project to project. But it isn't the wonderful money-making bandwagon it once was.
Thus, the kids who are simply going to school to make a better living are going to move on to other "high-technology" businesses. I'll bet there are many more interested in bio-tech now than there are for IT, electronics, or aerospace jobs.
Those of you who were interested in money more than the opportunity to play with a hot technology must realize by now that the wonderful salaries you used to command are just not there any more. I'm sorry. I wish it were different. However, we live in a fickle market. If it's only money you're interested in, know that you can make money doing almost anything, as long as people want the service or product. But if you're really interested in developing the technology further, then there is plenty of work out there --but you may have to adjust your lifestyle to accomondate it.
In the mid 1970s, when the space race slowed down, there was an entire generation of aerospace engineers who lost their jobs all over the country.
Space was supposed to have been the future. But it didn't turn out that way. The number of engineering students in universities dropped precipitously. After all, why go in to a job like that with little or no future, where your industry could evaporate overnight at the whim of a few "business leaders."
Later in the Early 1990s, I witnessed something similar when half of my class at the university disappeared because all the major defense contractors were laying off.
Engineers and other technology workers are well paid in good times. However, you need to keep a reserve and a backup career just in case the industry you're working in goes in to the toilet.
In the scheme of industries which have suffered, you folks in IT have little to complain about. Ask an engineer from the 1970's what life was like after the Apollo missions ceased.
You have tripped over a very large kernel of truth. The biggest problem with IT is not the technology itself, nor it's potential. The problem is that most of corporate managers do not know what to do with this technology.
It's called lack of imagination. It's called lack of communication. These are the people who fill country clubs and live on high management salaries these days. They talk about silly management fads to each other --but they don't have a clue about who or what they might be managing.
The bottom line: If companies can't communicate with or manage a home-grown IT staff, what on earth makes them think they could do better with someone else's staff from overseas?
Will anyone older than me testify that Slashdot was once a hallowed institution of platonic debate?
I can't say much about Slashdot. However, newsgroups have been around much longer; and this same disease of bitching about how the newbies are clueless goes back to the very beginnings of the Internet.
The use of moderation only works when the moderators themselves are actually knowlegable and civil enough to understand who is ranting, who is BSing, and what the relevant issues really are.
That's why I still feel that only you can really moderate the stuff you read. Slashdot's moderation scheme is a nice try. But ultimately, it only works after the fact --if it works at all. Participation in a discussion is the only way to smoke out who is full of themselves, and who knows his/her stuff.
Did they install the part or just design it and offer it as an upgrade for a fee?
The modification was done at little or no cost to existing car owners. I think the threat of multiple lawsuits was the primary consideration with the pricing of this issue. In other words, Audi paid.
Anti-virus software is not training wheels.
I beg to differ. My analogy was deliberately ridiculous because I think software viruses should not be an issue in the first place. Just as no motorcycle rider should have a problem with balancing on two wheels, users should not be executing software of unknown provenance using any OS features which might damage or reveal data.
Selling training wheels for a motorcycle is silly because it would limit maneuverability, teach the user very little, and require constant maintainance. The same goes for Anti-Virus software for any OS.
No MS is not responsible for the virus hackers nor are they responsible to give anti-virus programs for free.
In one sense you're right. Microsoft has every right to sell operating systems with seriously flawed security models. However, as long as vulnerable operating systems and ignorant users exist, we can't expect virus hackers to just give up and move on to something else.
Not that I want to weigh down my analogy down any further, but: Microsoft could no more blame virus hackers for their unreliable OS, than Yamaha could blame a bump in the road for a rider losing his balance. Both are things which must be accounted for in design.
I consider the very need for anti-virus software to be an indication of bad design. You are welcome to disagree, of course.
Apparently you didn't follow the car analogy very well. Not so long ago, Audi got sued by numerous people because their cars were accelerating when shifting from park. The crashes made for a very tearful segment on 60 Minutes.
After further study, the problem was determined to be the drivers themselves. Instead of holding the brake while shifting from park, these poor people were stepping on the gas --and not realizing it. Thus, Audi ended up building a special modification so that the shifter could not be moved from park unless the brake was applied.
User problem? Sure. Guess who paid for the fix? Fellow software engineers, take note: The user is stupid. But the user is always right.
That said, Anti-Virus software is very much like putting training wheels on a motorcycle. It might help people get started and on balance; but I agree, the real solution is to learn how to drive safely. Microsoft can buy all the anti-virus companies there are. At best it is only a short term fix.
As an owner of an airplane with a similar monitor, allow me these observations:
1) The data in the engine monitor of my airplane will help me diagnose problems before they become serious. I had an intake valve get sticky on me once. It happened while decending from 5000 to 3000 AGL. I was too damned busy configuring for best glide, scrambling for my engine out check list, and considering whether to declare an emergency to look over at the monitor. By the time I had the presence of mind to do that, the problem "fixed" itself. We couldn't get it to repeat.
Several flights later we identified the problem as a sticky intake valve. When that engine monitor needed to be replaced, I chose one with recording features built in. I plan on showing these sorts of events to my mechanics in the future so that I can show typical profiles and abnormal profiles to them.
2) JPI's choice about encryption is a ploy to sell software --or at the very least, a driver.
3) This information ought to have some sort of user assignable encryption feature so that others can't misuse the data. I don't want the FAA or NTSB using my own data against me in the event of an incident or crash.
4) AvWeb isn't a perfect source of information. JPI may have been seeking to do just what I suggested in note 3 above and they may have been misinterpreted by AvWeb. I saw nothing on JPI's web site regarding this issue.
5) I use a GEM engine monitor. It uses an old DOS program with a 1200 BPS IR port reader for an HP Palm-top. The protocol is "proprietary" --but I'm sure that with reasonable effort, one could reverse engineer it. If folks don't like JPI, there are alternatives; though they're really not much of an improvement...
I've been there too. I work with the guy who leases water tower space to Verizon, T-Mobil, Nextel, et al...
I'm also a ham radio enthusiast. It used to be that neighbors didn't care if you put a TV antenna on your roof. It used to be that neighbors didn't care that you had a few wire antennas strung out in your back yard.
Now all that's changed. Thanks to the ignorance of a few empowered art school students who know nothing about either radio, economics, or even public safety (yes, these idiots even balk at the need for police radio antennas), putting up an antenna is nearly impossible. However, should I have wanted to erect a pole of the same size for a flag or even an anemometer --they wouldn't care. I think this has to do with unfortunate choice of words we electrical engineers use to describe antenna performance: Radiation. It scares the art students.
This is the victory of foolish romantics over common sense. I wish these self appointed aesthetics police could learn the true depth of their arrogant stupidity --but they're too far gone for that to happen.
:-) There is no accounting for other's tastes. I like a "hoppy" beer. Maybe you're used to some poorly crafted beer?
However, you could seek out some of the German styles of beer. Many are very light on the hop usage.
The reason we use hops is really one of sanitation. Hops are a preservative. It's not easy fermenting all that maltose without hops to keep other sorts of off-flavors in check.
Before Hops came in to common use, brewers used lots of other interesting spices. It is known that the Egyptians used Coriander. Another spice was Cinnamon (you think hops are bitter?).
I can't think of the others off the top of my head, but I'm sure some other/. readers will...
Note to moderators: The parent post speaks wisdom. Please mod up.
I brew my own beer too. Adjuncts can be anything starchy. Don't forget that many brewers often add honey, molassas, even lactose for interesting taste effects.
The key factor is that none of these ingredients should be a major constituent of the beer. In other words, you should be preparing beer, not mead; so don't go overboard on the honey.
Also, the use of hops is relatively recent. Beer recipies have been found in the oldest records known to humanity. You can find them in Babelonian clay tablets, and on Egyptian tombs. Against that backdrop, hops are relatively recent --they've only been in common use for the last three centuries or so.
So what is beer? Beer's primary constituent should be fermented maltose. That's it. Everything else is up for grabs...
Well, it has some advantages. I like the SD socket for SD ram. My camera uses the same media. However, I can't use the SD socket for 802.11, bluetooth or any such thing. The E2 seems to be an improvement on that front.
I'd prefer that it have a microphone. Recording voice memos to myself would be handy. It plays MP3 stuff pretty well...
Audio is not too loud, except if you use headphones. And after a year of use, the power button on my unit is failing.
The software can be somewhat buggy. The IrDA interface is pretty slow if you're trying to sync up with it.
In all, I'm not sure I'd buy another one. If someone decides to write some useful monitoring software for wireless networks, I might be interested again --but for now it's little more than a glorified calculator, calendar, and address book.
Ok. Now I know why Palm is swimming in red ink. I own a Tungsten E. It's a nice toy. But that's about it.
The form factor sucks. I try to keep it in my shirt pocket and it weighs my shirt down. Keeping track of it when it's not in my pocket is no fun either. I don't think one should have to own a man purse to be able to use something like this.
Palm should have seen this coming. Too bad they didn't. This is too little, too late...
How about red-red-green means "turn on your radio before we shoot you down, you dumbshit!"
There have been miscommunication cases in the past where aircraft have been talking and following Air Traffic Control (Potomac Approach) instructions --but for whatever reason, NORAD didn't know the aircraft was supposed to be there. The result is often an intercept.
The pilots of the aircraft think they're doing OK. Then a blackhawk helicopter (callsign "Huntress") or an F-16 shows up on their wing. THEN they'll tune in 121.5. The laser system may be cheaper to run...
My airplane is based at Tipton airport (Fort Meade). It's well inside the "ADIZ". I'm used to it. For a pilot from out of town, this airpspace is very different from what they're used to. The ADIZ procedures themselves are actually different from the other ADIZ airspaces off the coast of the US.
So yes, some snide idiots out there say "read the NOTAM" and study the charts. This NOTAM might as well have been written in Navaho code talker language as far as most out of town pilots are concerned. It's also buried deep in the middle of a bunch of other NOTAMS such as volcano activity in Alaska and international flight considerations.
Furthermore, the chart symbols are a bit unusual. I'll bet you could find a lot of pilots who might not know every chart symbol on their sectionals. Mind you, I'm not making excuses for them, they should know. But this sort of stuff is often overlooked.
A pilot of a Cessna 172 fresh out of Arkansas, with perhaps an old pair of KX-170B radios, may not be up on all of this stuff. Yes, he should be, but it's not part of the standard training most pilots receive.
Furthermore, the FRZ inside the ADIZ is not easy to identify with common navigation instruments. Even an instrument rated pilot might miss the NOTAM marking the GPS RWY 10 approach as NA. Naturally, that approach is based upon Intersection BELTS and it's just inside the FRZ.
Good luck figuring that out on the L-28 instrument chart. The FRZ is not charted there.
By the way, the FRZ is not based upon any common navigational beacons. It's not even in some GPS database cards. Believe me, it's easy to make this mistake.
So before you start calling a bunch of out of town pilots dumbshits, why don't you try wading through this stuff and see how far you get...
Microwave News, edited by Louis Slesin is a prime example of a publication with only one purpose: to show the world that microwaves are dangerous.
Slesin has been criticised for years and years by the very same folks who gave us the ANSI standard for RF exposure.
The problem with so much of this research is that it's very difficult to get similar results from similar experiments. Once you're below the ANSI exposure standard, the apparent risk drops to something just barely observable from the usual daily afflictions. Every now and then someone comes up with a study which shows a positive correlation. However, to date, none of these experimental results have been reproduced --either in attempts to repeat the experiment, or in complementary approaches.
The important thing to understand here is that if there is a risk, it is extremely small.
The other thing to keep in perspective is the effects of big money on research. The big money works both ways: Governments love to throw money at research like this so that they can control industry with regulation "for the good of the people." Industry loves to throw money at these researchers to show that their products are safe.
The problem with obvious funding sources from either side is that the researchers have to fight very hard to stay independent and continue studying this phenonmenon.
These behaviors have been documented in many sources. The one I like best is The Great Betryal: Fraud In Science. A review of this work can be found here.
If I were you, I'd hesitate about repeating statements like "QDOS was a 'slapdash clone' of CP/M".
Maybe you didn't see it at the time, but DEC had an interesting product already well in to several major releases called RT-11. CP/M looked like a knock off of RT-11 to me. And RT-11 wasn't the only OS of that ilk in those days.
The fact is that many others were looking at similar APIs and similar architechtures. Is it such a stretch to think that both Kildall and Patterson might have both seen RT-11 or another such OS?
Let's wait and see how this case comes out. I'll bet we all learn something...
Actually, in a certificated aircraft, pilots are trained not to pay much attention to the fuel gauge except in one instance: when it reads EMPTY. The reason for this is because aircraft go through enough turbulence that most fuel level gauges are unreliable. Many aircraft have fuel flow totalizers to keep track how much has been burned. The pilot then subtracts that from the amount of fuel known to be in the tanks before flight.
That said, I wonder how they know that the fuel is venting/evaporating/leaking overboard instead of getting burned?
Another thing Fiorina didn't understand comes from this gem I stole from Jim Pinto:
First round of cuts and layoffs: Liposuction
Second round of cuts and layoffs: Amputation
Third round of cuts and layoffs: Dismemberment
You can only cut so much. After that you need a good idea of where you want to push the company. All I ever saw Fiorina do (as an outsider) was blow smoke and bleed these once great companies to near death.
I hope HP survives to make more wonderful products...
Selective Availability can be circumvented with a number of interesting technologies. I've heard rumors of the use of two GPS receivers placed a known distance apart being used to cancel out the SA part of GPS.
There are a number of differential GPS technologies which are in service right now for improving accuracy. There is also WAAS. In theory, the military can turn those off too. But in reality, Differential GPS is distributed such that someone would actually have to go to the differential transmitter site and shut it down. It's not just a matter of flipping a switch.
What it all comes down to is that you don't have to break the SA crypto. There are other ways of improving the accuracy of your position if you really care about such things.
Let's not forget the Russian GLONASS system, either.
But what really killed lighthouses wasn't GPS. It was LORAN. And LORAN has been all over Europe and the Middle East for decades. It is ground based, and we "arrogant cowboys" have very little to do with it.
I'm afraid that this is yet another case of European leftist propaganda. If it hadn't been for GPS killing off light houses, it would have been something else --and it's easy to blame the US for it. Easy, but wrong.
"I've even seen screenshots of major commercial aeroplanes with Windows 2000-based operating systems," said Mikko Hypponen, director of anti-virus research at Finnish firm F-Secure.
Calm down folks. I've seen plenty of cool looking computers built in to aircraft instrument panels. Yes, some of them run Windows.
First, you can be assured that they only update via a firmware media card such as SDRAM. Nobody's going to point a Bluetooth antenna at an airplane and knock it out of the sky.
Second, of the gripes that most of you have about Windows, the majority and the most egregious behaviors have to do with what happens when you network these things to insecure places. Windows has actually become quite stable in the last few releases. In a stand-alone configuration these systems are fairly reliable platforms.
Third, most pilots rarely get in to the down and dirty features of their displays. They don't have the time, nor do most of them care enough to learn any more than they need to get the airplane safely from point A to point B. You can say one thing for certain about Windows: the path is well worn. As long as you are doing relatively conventional stuff, it will serve you well.
Fourth, these are just navigation boxes. There are backup instruments. If a navigation computer dies, there will be other resources to navigate with. There are very few things in the panel of the airplane which do not have a backup of some sort --particularly where the avionics stack is concerned.
I say this as one who really doesn't like using or programming with Windows. Like any tool, it has its flaws; though when properly used, it can be quite safe.
Hmmm. I did the math and I figure that if you had the antenna right against your skin, and absorbed most of the RF, you might be able to get a power density as high as 100 Milliwatts per square centimeter.
I know, that's about 100 times more than the extremely conservative ANSI standard, but keep in mind that they rate their standard with 30 minute exposure times. Most phones operate in a loose form of voice operated half duplex. You must have been a fairly prolific talker to manage getting a burn from this phone antenna.
Keep in mind, your configuration is nothing new. Cops have had four and five watt handheld radios on their belts for years. I've used similar hand-held radios with the antennas pretty close to my head for years. I've never been burned by them. Yes, the frequencies are different. But the power is greater by more than an order of magnitude.
In any case, I seriously doubt you were maimed from this. Keeping the phone close to your body like that is not a good idea for another big reason: It soaks up signal from the cell site, causing the power control circuitry to do what it can to compensate. Motorola found that out years ago and that's why many cops have the radio on their belt, but a microphone with an antenna on their lapel. The higher up the antenna is, the more likely the radio will be able to get the message through...
Well, since you are already starting from a position of doubt, I don't know that explaining my background in electrical engineering, telecommunications, and industrial controls would mean much.
A colleague and I have been keeping track of the research for more than 15 years because our company's safety people have been interested, but incapable of administering such a technical endeavor competently. We keep track of how many antennas and how much power density there are at the tops of structures. I'm also a ham radio operator for nearly 30 years. I'm not just interested in this subject professionally, I have a personal interest in it as well.
The bottom line with most studies I've seen is that the correlations of whatever the malady the researchers seek to match with RF exposure are very low. Furthermore, it's very difficult to prove that these correlations are due exclusively to non-thermal effects of RF exposure and not some secondary cause.
From a strictly physical point of view, RF is not ionizing radiation. So if it can't break chemical bonds merely by exposure, then it has to work some other way at causing damage. What might that be?
I've seen some things posted about the possibility of resonance. This would seem to indicate that a MRI scan of a human body would show the vunerabilities by virtue of antenna reciprocity. Yet, because of the self sheilding nature of our conductive tissues, it would take substantial amounts of RF radiation to have much effect on specific chemical bonds in the body. The amount of power we're talking about is high enough that I believe the predominant concern would be thermal rather than any resonance.
I really don't think there is a whole lot to be discovered in these studies. People have been conducting statistical studies for generations and failed to show anything conclusive. A correlation, if there is one to be found at all, is unlikely to be of any significance. In the scheme of things we need to be concerned about in daily life, this just doesn't rate.
Yawn... People have been studying this stuff since the infancy of radio over 100 years ago. The methods are as sophisticated as ever. Do you know what they've found?
NOTHING!
Not one study has demonstrated repeatable results of any non-thermal effects. Some positive studies were just poorly done. Others were shining examples of outright fraud, such as the Liburdy (sp?) case at Stanford University a few years ago.
Frankly, if over 100 years of research hasn't turned up any non-thermal effects from RF, then I really wouldn't lose much sleep over this. Those silly researchers are just trying to build a case to do more research. I wish they'd find a better topic...
Do you KNOW that the burn you recieved came from RF? Because if it did, you'd be front page news. You see, these phones operate on very low power --on the order of 3 tenths of a watt MAXIMUM. To observe a burn from such low power it would have to be concentrated on a very small patch of skin.
So, if it wasn't the RF, do you suppose it could have been the battery? Or perhaps the electronics shedding some heat? Those things do get warm while the phone is in use...
Slashdot Mirror
...you are telling people to stop whining.
Actually, I'm not. What I'm saying is that there are boom/bust business and technology cycles. It's simply a fact of the "high-technology" business. Eventually, the public loses that wide-eyed gee-whiz fascination with a new technology and the market settles back to something more sustainable.
There are still many engineers and IT workers out there. They love what they do and they move from project to project. But it isn't the wonderful money-making bandwagon it once was.
Thus, the kids who are simply going to school to make a better living are going to move on to other "high-technology" businesses. I'll bet there are many more interested in bio-tech now than there are for IT, electronics, or aerospace jobs.
Those of you who were interested in money more than the opportunity to play with a hot technology must realize by now that the wonderful salaries you used to command are just not there any more. I'm sorry. I wish it were different. However, we live in a fickle market. If it's only money you're interested in, know that you can make money doing almost anything, as long as people want the service or product. But if you're really interested in developing the technology further, then there is plenty of work out there --but you may have to adjust your lifestyle to accomondate it.
In the mid 1970s, when the space race slowed down, there was an entire generation of aerospace engineers who lost their jobs all over the country.
Space was supposed to have been the future. But it didn't turn out that way. The number of engineering students in universities dropped precipitously. After all, why go in to a job like that with little or no future, where your industry could evaporate overnight at the whim of a few "business leaders."
Later in the Early 1990s, I witnessed something similar when half of my class at the university disappeared because all the major defense contractors were laying off.
Engineers and other technology workers are well paid in good times. However, you need to keep a reserve and a backup career just in case the industry you're working in goes in to the toilet.
In the scheme of industries which have suffered, you folks in IT have little to complain about. Ask an engineer from the 1970's what life was like after the Apollo missions ceased.
You have tripped over a very large kernel of truth. The biggest problem with IT is not the technology itself, nor it's potential. The problem is that most of corporate managers do not know what to do with this technology.
It's called lack of imagination. It's called lack of communication. These are the people who fill country clubs and live on high management salaries these days. They talk about silly management fads to each other --but they don't have a clue about who or what they might be managing.
The bottom line: If companies can't communicate with or manage a home-grown IT staff, what on earth makes them think they could do better with someone else's staff from overseas?
I can't say much about Slashdot. However, newsgroups have been around much longer; and this same disease of bitching about how the newbies are clueless goes back to the very beginnings of the Internet.
The use of moderation only works when the moderators themselves are actually knowlegable and civil enough to understand who is ranting, who is BSing, and what the relevant issues really are.
That's why I still feel that only you can really moderate the stuff you read. Slashdot's moderation scheme is a nice try. But ultimately, it only works after the fact --if it works at all. Participation in a discussion is the only way to smoke out who is full of themselves, and who knows his/her stuff.
Did they install the part or just design it and offer it as an upgrade for a fee?
The modification was done at little or no cost to existing car owners. I think the threat of multiple lawsuits was the primary consideration with the pricing of this issue. In other words, Audi paid.
Anti-virus software is not training wheels.
I beg to differ. My analogy was deliberately ridiculous because I think software viruses should not be an issue in the first place. Just as no motorcycle rider should have a problem with balancing on two wheels, users should not be executing software of unknown provenance using any OS features which might damage or reveal data.
Selling training wheels for a motorcycle is silly because it would limit maneuverability, teach the user very little, and require constant maintainance. The same goes for Anti-Virus software for any OS.
No MS is not responsible for the virus hackers nor are they responsible to give anti-virus programs for free.
In one sense you're right. Microsoft has every right to sell operating systems with seriously flawed security models. However, as long as vulnerable operating systems and ignorant users exist, we can't expect virus hackers to just give up and move on to something else.
Not that I want to weigh down my analogy down any further, but: Microsoft could no more blame virus hackers for their unreliable OS, than Yamaha could blame a bump in the road for a rider losing his balance. Both are things which must be accounted for in design.
I consider the very need for anti-virus software to be an indication of bad design. You are welcome to disagree, of course.
Apparently you didn't follow the car analogy very well. Not so long ago, Audi got sued by numerous people because their cars were accelerating when shifting from park. The crashes made for a very tearful segment on 60 Minutes.
After further study, the problem was determined to be the drivers themselves. Instead of holding the brake while shifting from park, these poor people were stepping on the gas --and not realizing it. Thus, Audi ended up building a special modification so that the shifter could not be moved from park unless the brake was applied.
User problem? Sure. Guess who paid for the fix? Fellow software engineers, take note: The user is stupid. But the user is always right.
That said, Anti-Virus software is very much like putting training wheels on a motorcycle. It might help people get started and on balance; but I agree, the real solution is to learn how to drive safely. Microsoft can buy all the anti-virus companies there are. At best it is only a short term fix.
As an owner of an airplane with a similar monitor, allow me these observations:
1) The data in the engine monitor of my airplane will help me diagnose problems before they become serious. I had an intake valve get sticky on me once. It happened while decending from 5000 to 3000 AGL. I was too damned busy configuring for best glide, scrambling for my engine out check list, and considering whether to declare an emergency to look over at the monitor. By the time I had the presence of mind to do that, the problem "fixed" itself. We couldn't get it to repeat.
Several flights later we identified the problem as a sticky intake valve. When that engine monitor needed to be replaced, I chose one with recording features built in. I plan on showing these sorts of events to my mechanics in the future so that I can show typical profiles and abnormal profiles to them.
2) JPI's choice about encryption is a ploy to sell software --or at the very least, a driver.
3) This information ought to have some sort of user assignable encryption feature so that others can't misuse the data. I don't want the FAA or NTSB using my own data against me in the event of an incident or crash.
4) AvWeb isn't a perfect source of information. JPI may have been seeking to do just what I suggested in note 3 above and they may have been misinterpreted by AvWeb. I saw nothing on JPI's web site regarding this issue.
5) I use a GEM engine monitor. It uses an old DOS program with a 1200 BPS IR port reader for an HP Palm-top. The protocol is "proprietary" --but I'm sure that with reasonable effort, one could reverse engineer it. If folks don't like JPI, there are alternatives; though they're really not much of an improvement...
I've been there too. I work with the guy who leases water tower space to Verizon, T-Mobil, Nextel, et al...
I'm also a ham radio enthusiast. It used to be that neighbors didn't care if you put a TV antenna on your roof. It used to be that neighbors didn't care that you had a few wire antennas strung out in your back yard.
Now all that's changed. Thanks to the ignorance of a few empowered art school students who know nothing about either radio, economics, or even public safety (yes, these idiots even balk at the need for police radio antennas), putting up an antenna is nearly impossible. However, should I have wanted to erect a pole of the same size for a flag or even an anemometer --they wouldn't care. I think this has to do with unfortunate choice of words we electrical engineers use to describe antenna performance: Radiation. It scares the art students.
This is the victory of foolish romantics over common sense. I wish these self appointed aesthetics police could learn the true depth of their arrogant stupidity --but they're too far gone for that to happen.
:-) There is no accounting for other's tastes. I like a "hoppy" beer. Maybe you're used to some poorly crafted beer?
/. readers will...
However, you could seek out some of the German styles of beer. Many are very light on the hop usage.
The reason we use hops is really one of sanitation. Hops are a preservative. It's not easy fermenting all that maltose without hops to keep other sorts of off-flavors in check.
Before Hops came in to common use, brewers used lots of other interesting spices. It is known that the Egyptians used Coriander. Another spice was Cinnamon (you think hops are bitter?).
I can't think of the others off the top of my head, but I'm sure some other
Note to moderators: The parent post speaks wisdom. Please mod up.
I brew my own beer too. Adjuncts can be anything starchy. Don't forget that many brewers often add honey, molassas, even lactose for interesting taste effects.
The key factor is that none of these ingredients should be a major constituent of the beer. In other words, you should be preparing beer, not mead; so don't go overboard on the honey.
Also, the use of hops is relatively recent. Beer recipies have been found in the oldest records known to humanity. You can find them in Babelonian clay tablets, and on Egyptian tombs. Against that backdrop, hops are relatively recent --they've only been in common use for the last three centuries or so.
So what is beer? Beer's primary constituent should be fermented maltose. That's it. Everything else is up for grabs...
Well, it has some advantages. I like the SD socket for SD ram. My camera uses the same media. However, I can't use the SD socket for 802.11, bluetooth or any such thing. The E2 seems to be an improvement on that front.
I'd prefer that it have a microphone. Recording voice memos to myself would be handy. It plays MP3 stuff pretty well...
Audio is not too loud, except if you use headphones. And after a year of use, the power button on my unit is failing.
The software can be somewhat buggy. The IrDA interface is pretty slow if you're trying to sync up with it.
In all, I'm not sure I'd buy another one. If someone decides to write some useful monitoring software for wireless networks, I might be interested again --but for now it's little more than a glorified calculator, calendar, and address book.
Ok. Now I know why Palm is swimming in red ink. I own a Tungsten E. It's a nice toy. But that's about it.
The form factor sucks. I try to keep it in my shirt pocket and it weighs my shirt down. Keeping track of it when it's not in my pocket is no fun either. I don't think one should have to own a man purse to be able to use something like this.
Palm should have seen this coming. Too bad they didn't. This is too little, too late...
There have been miscommunication cases in the past where aircraft have been talking and following Air Traffic Control (Potomac Approach) instructions --but for whatever reason, NORAD didn't know the aircraft was supposed to be there. The result is often an intercept.
The pilots of the aircraft think they're doing OK. Then a blackhawk helicopter (callsign "Huntress") or an F-16 shows up on their wing. THEN they'll tune in 121.5. The laser system may be cheaper to run...
My airplane is based at Tipton airport (Fort Meade). It's well inside the "ADIZ". I'm used to it. For a pilot from out of town, this airpspace is very different from what they're used to. The ADIZ procedures themselves are actually different from the other ADIZ airspaces off the coast of the US.
So yes, some snide idiots out there say "read the NOTAM" and study the charts. This NOTAM might as well have been written in Navaho code talker language as far as most out of town pilots are concerned. It's also buried deep in the middle of a bunch of other NOTAMS such as volcano activity in Alaska and international flight considerations.
Furthermore, the chart symbols are a bit unusual. I'll bet you could find a lot of pilots who might not know every chart symbol on their sectionals. Mind you, I'm not making excuses for them, they should know. But this sort of stuff is often overlooked.
A pilot of a Cessna 172 fresh out of Arkansas, with perhaps an old pair of KX-170B radios, may not be up on all of this stuff. Yes, he should be, but it's not part of the standard training most pilots receive.
Furthermore, the FRZ inside the ADIZ is not easy to identify with common navigation instruments. Even an instrument rated pilot might miss the NOTAM marking the GPS RWY 10 approach as NA. Naturally, that approach is based upon Intersection BELTS and it's just inside the FRZ.
Good luck figuring that out on the L-28 instrument chart. The FRZ is not charted there.
By the way, the FRZ is not based upon any common navigational beacons. It's not even in some GPS database cards. Believe me, it's easy to make this mistake.
So before you start calling a bunch of out of town pilots dumbshits, why don't you try wading through this stuff and see how far you get...
Microwave News, edited by Louis Slesin is a prime example of a publication with only one purpose: to show the world that microwaves are dangerous.
Slesin has been criticised for years and years by the very same folks who gave us the ANSI standard for RF exposure.
The problem with so much of this research is that it's very difficult to get similar results from similar experiments. Once you're below the ANSI exposure standard, the apparent risk drops to something just barely observable from the usual daily afflictions. Every now and then someone comes up with a study which shows a positive correlation. However, to date, none of these experimental results have been reproduced --either in attempts to repeat the experiment, or in complementary approaches.
The important thing to understand here is that if there is a risk, it is extremely small.
The other thing to keep in perspective is the effects of big money on research. The big money works both ways: Governments love to throw money at research like this so that they can control industry with regulation "for the good of the people." Industry loves to throw money at these researchers to show that their products are safe.
The problem with obvious funding sources from either side is that the researchers have to fight very hard to stay independent and continue studying this phenonmenon.
These behaviors have been documented in many sources. The one I like best is The Great Betryal: Fraud In Science. A review of this work can be found here.
If I were you, I'd hesitate about repeating statements like "QDOS was a 'slapdash clone' of CP/M".
Maybe you didn't see it at the time, but DEC had an interesting product already well in to several major releases called RT-11. CP/M looked like a knock off of RT-11 to me. And RT-11 wasn't the only OS of that ilk in those days.
The fact is that many others were looking at similar APIs and similar architechtures. Is it such a stretch to think that both Kildall and Patterson might have both seen RT-11 or another such OS?
Let's wait and see how this case comes out. I'll bet we all learn something...
You should have been modded funny.
Actually, in a certificated aircraft, pilots are trained not to pay much attention to the fuel gauge except in one instance: when it reads EMPTY. The reason for this is because aircraft go through enough turbulence that most fuel level gauges are unreliable. Many aircraft have fuel flow totalizers to keep track how much has been burned. The pilot then subtracts that from the amount of fuel known to be in the tanks before flight.
That said, I wonder how they know that the fuel is venting/evaporating/leaking overboard instead of getting burned?
Well, at least we're honest about it instead of those countries who pretend piety in these matters and still keep doing what they always have...
I can't speak for Muslims, but I don't know of any Jews (Orthodox, Conservative, or otherwise) who are offended by a cartoonish beastie.
Another thing Fiorina didn't understand comes from this gem I stole from Jim Pinto:
First round of cuts and layoffs: Liposuction
Second round of cuts and layoffs: Amputation
Third round of cuts and layoffs: Dismemberment
You can only cut so much. After that you need a good idea of where you want to push the company. All I ever saw Fiorina do (as an outsider) was blow smoke and bleed these once great companies to near death.
I hope HP survives to make more wonderful products...
Selective Availability can be circumvented with a number of interesting technologies. I've heard rumors of the use of two GPS receivers placed a known distance apart being used to cancel out the SA part of GPS.
There are a number of differential GPS technologies which are in service right now for improving accuracy. There is also WAAS. In theory, the military can turn those off too. But in reality, Differential GPS is distributed such that someone would actually have to go to the differential transmitter site and shut it down. It's not just a matter of flipping a switch.
What it all comes down to is that you don't have to break the SA crypto. There are other ways of improving the accuracy of your position if you really care about such things.
Let's not forget the Russian GLONASS system, either.
But what really killed lighthouses wasn't GPS. It was LORAN. And LORAN has been all over Europe and the Middle East for decades. It is ground based, and we "arrogant cowboys" have very little to do with it.
I'm afraid that this is yet another case of European leftist propaganda. If it hadn't been for GPS killing off light houses, it would have been something else --and it's easy to blame the US for it. Easy, but wrong.
Calm down folks. I've seen plenty of cool looking computers built in to aircraft instrument panels. Yes, some of them run Windows.
First, you can be assured that they only update via a firmware media card such as SDRAM. Nobody's going to point a Bluetooth antenna at an airplane and knock it out of the sky.
Second, of the gripes that most of you have about Windows, the majority and the most egregious behaviors have to do with what happens when you network these things to insecure places. Windows has actually become quite stable in the last few releases. In a stand-alone configuration these systems are fairly reliable platforms.
Third, most pilots rarely get in to the down and dirty features of their displays. They don't have the time, nor do most of them care enough to learn any more than they need to get the airplane safely from point A to point B. You can say one thing for certain about Windows: the path is well worn. As long as you are doing relatively conventional stuff, it will serve you well.
Fourth, these are just navigation boxes. There are backup instruments. If a navigation computer dies, there will be other resources to navigate with. There are very few things in the panel of the airplane which do not have a backup of some sort --particularly where the avionics stack is concerned.
I say this as one who really doesn't like using or programming with Windows. Like any tool, it has its flaws; though when properly used, it can be quite safe.
Hmmm. I did the math and I figure that if you had the antenna right against your skin, and absorbed most of the RF, you might be able to get a power density as high as 100 Milliwatts per square centimeter.
I know, that's about 100 times more than the extremely conservative ANSI standard, but keep in mind that they rate their standard with 30 minute exposure times. Most phones operate in a loose form of voice operated half duplex. You must have been a fairly prolific talker to manage getting a burn from this phone antenna.
Keep in mind, your configuration is nothing new. Cops have had four and five watt handheld radios on their belts for years. I've used similar hand-held radios with the antennas pretty close to my head for years. I've never been burned by them. Yes, the frequencies are different. But the power is greater by more than an order of magnitude.
In any case, I seriously doubt you were maimed from this. Keeping the phone close to your body like that is not a good idea for another big reason: It soaks up signal from the cell site, causing the power control circuitry to do what it can to compensate. Motorola found that out years ago and that's why many cops have the radio on their belt, but a microphone with an antenna on their lapel. The higher up the antenna is, the more likely the radio will be able to get the message through...
Well, since you are already starting from a position of doubt, I don't know that explaining my background in electrical engineering, telecommunications, and industrial controls would mean much.
A colleague and I have been keeping track of the research for more than 15 years because our company's safety people have been interested, but incapable of administering such a technical endeavor competently. We keep track of how many antennas and how much power density there are at the tops of structures. I'm also a ham radio operator for nearly 30 years. I'm not just interested in this subject professionally, I have a personal interest in it as well.
The bottom line with most studies I've seen is that the correlations of whatever the malady the researchers seek to match with RF exposure are very low. Furthermore, it's very difficult to prove that these correlations are due exclusively to non-thermal effects of RF exposure and not some secondary cause.
From a strictly physical point of view, RF is not ionizing radiation. So if it can't break chemical bonds merely by exposure, then it has to work some other way at causing damage. What might that be?
I've seen some things posted about the possibility of resonance. This would seem to indicate that a MRI scan of a human body would show the vunerabilities by virtue of antenna reciprocity. Yet, because of the self sheilding nature of our conductive tissues, it would take substantial amounts of RF radiation to have much effect on specific chemical bonds in the body. The amount of power we're talking about is high enough that I believe the predominant concern would be thermal rather than any resonance.
I really don't think there is a whole lot to be discovered in these studies. People have been conducting statistical studies for generations and failed to show anything conclusive. A correlation, if there is one to be found at all, is unlikely to be of any significance. In the scheme of things we need to be concerned about in daily life, this just doesn't rate.
Not one study has demonstrated repeatable results of any non-thermal effects. Some positive studies were just poorly done. Others were shining examples of outright fraud, such as the Liburdy (sp?) case at Stanford University a few years ago.
Frankly, if over 100 years of research hasn't turned up any non-thermal effects from RF, then I really wouldn't lose much sleep over this. Those silly researchers are just trying to build a case to do more research. I wish they'd find a better topic...
...it was giving me a burn.
Allow me the benefit of Occams Razor here:
Do you KNOW that the burn you recieved came from RF? Because if it did, you'd be front page news. You see, these phones operate on very low power --on the order of 3 tenths of a watt MAXIMUM. To observe a burn from such low power it would have to be concentrated on a very small patch of skin.
So, if it wasn't the RF, do you suppose it could have been the battery? Or perhaps the electronics shedding some heat? Those things do get warm while the phone is in use...