Now.. we just need the FCC and other regulatory bodies over the globe to allocate a PROPER chunk of bandwidth, with more power and better rules, specifically for wifi.
Look how much has been accomplished in 2.4Ghz ISM...who would aruge that license-free use of this spectrum was not totally to the benefit of society.
Think of what things could be like if some real spectrum was allocated, with better power.
Let's not put too much blame on the guy asking the out of place question.. though I know we all focus our blame on him at hte time. If his question is out of place, it should not be answered at that time.. rather, the person with the answer should say "We don't need to do that in this meeting, come see me after" or whatever.
Could you perhaps point out which part of the constitution says it's only for Citizens?
I've read the whole thing many times, and I sure can't find it (and neither can any of the many analyses of it you will find with google).
The Constitution specifies "citizens" in some clauses, usually related to elections and whatnot.. but the Bill of Rights and other clauses apply to the country as a whole, not to "citizens only." They generally refer to "people" or "any person"... (which is different from "the people" which could be taken to mean "citizen"). Often other laws simply refer to what congress is and is not allowed to do.
"COngress shall make no law..."... there isn't a clause in there that says "but it's okay if it only applies to non-citizens"
Right.. but that's the point. You have congress passing laws whenever it feels like and leaving it up to the supreme court to address constitutionality.
What happens in the meantime? The government gets to violate the constitution pretty much whenever they have a good reason to, with a slap on the wrist later.
Ergo, the constitution does not protect citizens as some claim it does.
My point is that, despite the great document the US constitution is, it's terms are violated whenever those in power feel it's convenient.
You feel that constitutional violations are okay if it involves terrorists? Have I forgotten Sept 11th? Nope. Have you forgotten how many people are being imprisoned with no trial, no charges, no access to a lawyer, no nothing?
"If the tables were turned" is a shitty argument.. aren't you supposed to be BETTER than the other guy? What some foreign country would do is not justification for violating your own constitution.
My only point is that the constitution cannot be held over the world as a shining example of power of the people becaues it's effectively ignored for practical purposes all the time.
As to what I mean about laws being undone.. that was a poor choice of words. What I mean is this.
It seems to me that once something passes the "constitutionality" test... it's on the books, and it's bad form to question it. If the constitution says something isn't allowed, it's not supposed to be allowed.. and it's okay to question that vigorously.
Let's face it.. constitution aside, the problem we have with cameras in public places isn't crime prevention, but the other abuses that go along with it. WE don't really care if law enforcement can scour every database on earth for criminals.. but what we don't want is the other abuse that goes along with it.
In many other countries, it is easier for the government to do things tha twould be "unconstitutional" in the US, within a narrow law enforcement scope.. but very hard for them to go outside that scope without getting in deep shit.
Are you implying the US constitution prevents such things? It no longer does, and hasn't for quite some time.
Patriot act? Drug war? Internment camps? Communist trials? Witch burnings? It goes back forever.
Those in power manage to convince the people that some violations of the constitution are for their own good, and anyone who speaks out about it is a bad guy.
You can say "Oh well the supreme court can eventually overturn it.."
Guess what. In places like Britain, they may do some things you think the constitution would prevent. They can also much more easily STOP doing those things... it's more rational.
Really, what satisfaction would there be? The fun of it, and the only challenging part is making the sucker spread... making it do something like erase a disk or what is too easy.
Now.. some old dos viruses did more creative things, like watch the keyboard buffer for "ronald reagan" and immediately sieze the buffer and add "is an arsehole"... very funny when you are working in wordpefect or whatever
The problem is your argument can be taken to any level. No matter what logic I come up with, you can just say "But how do you know God didn't create THAT system?"
It is true. At some point, thigns are beyond our science.
I don't see any evidence whatsoever that God created the universe, unless you take the fact that it exists to mean someone created it. I personally do not require the belief that something consciously created the universe. I'm happy with areas we cannot yet explore, period.
But I'm not arguing the existence of God... it's just the anthropic principle. We shoudl not be surprised that the universe appears to be neatly organized just for us... all things working together.. if they didn't, we would not be here to observe it.
As to whether a perfect simulation of something is itself an ecosystem... that's beyond modern science, and into philosophy. Personally I believe if we could simulate every factor, it WOULD be an ecosystem... just as rich as a "real" one.. provided the universe is nothing but a bunch of related events. But that's a big assumption... we don't yet know if such a simulation is possible.
But math is nothing but symbols in the first place.. the purest math is just symbols, not numbers.
1 is a symbol, so is 2, so is 3. So is i, so is pi.
A god with a plan?
on
The Golden Ratio
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
Why does this make you think there is a supreme being, with a plan? Just beause things work out?
The balance and beauty of nature and all that?
OF COURSE there is a pattern, and things work out. Look at evolution.
You take a puddle in the middle of nowhere.. it has an ecosystem in it with a perfectly balanced population (too many, it dries up, too few, they reproduce...). Would these little creatures say "Oh wow! Look how there is JUST enough water for each of us! There must be a GOD!".... silly, right?
Nature seems balanced in the world, becuase that world produced nature... they are intertwined, infinitely.
Irrational numbers only seem strange because of the way we choose to look at things... the fact that it doesn't reduce to some fraction in our counting system doesn't *mean* anything holy or significant....
The fibonacci series and the golden ratio are related? Sure are. (The ratio of successive numbers in the fib. series approaches the golden ratio as you go upwards)
But it's not so weird, is it? A sunflower.. the way it grows, it builds on itself.. in a spiral... naturally following this series.
Is it some grand creator that made it that way, or is it just the plain, obvious way for something to grow?
What would be evidence of a creator would be if things did NOT follow what was natural and obvious. If these things did NOT follow the golden ratio and other straight math.. if we could find no explanation for why things had a weird ratio, or weird behavior.. no explanation from the current or possible past enviroment to explain how something evolved.... come to me with that, then we can talk about a creator.
Though this sounds really interesting to me personally...
I understand assembly language. I understand how the computer works on it's lowest levels, more so than most programmers I've met.
Does that make me a good programmer? Hell no..at least not in anything other than assembly.
Now.. learning some assembly and some low level stuff is GOOD for a programmer to know, to really understand what's up and take away the magic black box.... but it won't make you a good programmer.
It doens't help me understand, say, java. Or C++.
IT does make C and pointers a bit easier to understand.. as well as things like memory allocation.. but other than that, nope.
I've used this in the past.. but it's only real value is that nobody knows you are doing it. Someone with a sniffer and a brain can figure it out.
In the end, it's only a gimmick. If you have to knock a few ports.. that can be sniffed out, just like a password. Though it might seem at first like it's more secure, it's not.. it just adds obscurity.
Now.. obscurity of this nature does have some value... it's obscurity.. and not likely to be detected by some script kiddie...
but don't kid yourself into thinking this is revolutionary, or in any technical way more secure. It's not.
The fiber network is not everywhere.... do you think they have fiber on every pole? (fiber is usually buried, btw)
Backbone == NOC. They are using medium voltage power lines as a large network between their backbone and the access points... the article headline, despite being on slashdot, is acccurate.
"These wireless "boxes" convert data so they can be sent through the grid and on to PUC's fibre-optic backbone, which connects to the Internet. Home computers equipped with 802.11b or "Wi-Fi" wireless access cards and within 150 metres of these access points will be able to use the service."
In what way is the headline inaccurate? This is the first semi-large test of using the power grid as a network distribution medium.
Slashdot Mirror
Now.. we just need the FCC and other regulatory bodies over the globe to allocate a PROPER chunk of bandwidth, with more power and better rules, specifically for wifi.
Look how much has been accomplished in 2.4Ghz ISM...who would aruge that license-free use of this spectrum was not totally to the benefit of society.
Think of what things could be like if some real spectrum was allocated, with better power.
Zed, thief.
Formerly of the Tinkers, formerly of the Furies.
Let's not put too much blame on the guy asking the out of place question.. though I know we all focus our blame on him at hte time. If his question is out of place, it should not be answered at that time.. rather, the person with the answer should say "We don't need to do that in this meeting, come see me after" or whatever.
No doubt. I twas.
Babylon 5 ranks up as my favorite sci-fi of all time too... at least the first 4 seasons or so.
Could you perhaps point out which part of the constitution says it's only for Citizens?
I've read the whole thing many times, and I sure can't find it (and neither can any of the many analyses of it you will find with google).
The Constitution specifies "citizens" in some clauses, usually related to elections and whatnot.. but the Bill of Rights and other clauses apply to the country as a whole, not to "citizens only." They generally refer to "people" or "any person"... (which is different from "the people" which could be taken to mean "citizen"). Often other laws simply refer to what congress is and is not allowed to do.
"COngress shall make no law..."... there isn't a clause in there that says "but it's okay if it only applies to non-citizens"
Right.. but that's the point.
You have congress passing laws whenever it feels like and leaving it up to the supreme court to address constitutionality.
What happens in the meantime? The government gets to violate the constitution pretty much whenever they have a good reason to, with a slap on the wrist later.
Ergo, the constitution does not protect citizens as some claim it does.
You just proved my point.
My point is that, despite the great document the US constitution is, it's terms are violated whenever those in power feel it's convenient.
You feel that constitutional violations are okay if it involves terrorists? Have I forgotten Sept 11th? Nope. Have you forgotten how many people are being imprisoned with no trial, no charges, no access to a lawyer, no nothing?
"If the tables were turned" is a shitty argument.. aren't you supposed to be BETTER than the other guy? What some foreign country would do is not justification for violating your own constitution.
My only point is that the constitution cannot be held over the world as a shining example of power of the people becaues it's effectively ignored for practical purposes all the time.
As to what I mean about laws being undone.. that was a poor choice of words. What I mean is this.
It seems to me that once something passes the "constitutionality" test... it's on the books, and it's bad form to question it. If the constitution says something isn't allowed, it's not supposed to be allowed.. and it's okay to question that vigorously.
Let's face it.. constitution aside, the problem we have with cameras in public places isn't crime prevention, but the other abuses that go along with it. WE don't really care if law enforcement can scour every database on earth for criminals.. but what we don't want is the other abuse that goes along with it.
In many other countries, it is easier for the government to do things tha twould be "unconstitutional" in the US, within a narrow law enforcement scope.. but very hard for them to go outside that scope without getting in deep shit.
Are you implying the US constitution prevents such things? It no longer does, and hasn't for quite some time.
Patriot act? Drug war? Internment camps? Communist trials? Witch burnings? It goes back forever.
Those in power manage to convince the people that some violations of the constitution are for their own good, and anyone who speaks out about it is a bad guy.
You can say "Oh well the supreme court can eventually overturn it.."
Guess what. In places like Britain, they may do some things you think the constitution would prevent. They can also much more easily STOP doing those things... it's more rational.
No, the natural way for a closed system such as the universe to tend is towards increasing entropy.
Not the natural state for "a thing"
there are many, many self-organizing "things" in the universe aside form life, where entropy on a small scale decreases.
On a large scale though, entropy is always increasing.
You got it.
Really, what satisfaction would there be? The fun of it, and the only challenging part is making the sucker spread... making it do something like erase a disk or what is too easy.
Now.. some old dos viruses did more creative things, like watch the keyboard buffer for "ronald reagan" and immediately sieze the buffer and add "is an arsehole"... very funny when you are working in wordpefect or whatever
Have you thought of looking for a new job? Actively?
Obviously you aren't happy where oyu are.
True enough, but I refuse to believe that because Women exist, God exists... that's just too scary to think about.
The problem is your argument can be taken to any level. No matter what logic I come up with, you can just say "But how do you know God didn't create THAT system?"
It is true. At some point, thigns are beyond our science.
I don't see any evidence whatsoever that God created the universe, unless you take the fact that it exists to mean someone created it. I personally do not require the belief that something consciously created the universe. I'm happy with areas we cannot yet explore, period.
But I'm not arguing the existence of God... it's just the anthropic principle. We shoudl not be surprised that the universe appears to be neatly organized just for us... all things working together.. if they didn't, we would not be here to observe it.
As to whether a perfect simulation of something is itself an ecosystem... that's beyond modern science, and into philosophy. Personally I believe if we could simulate every factor, it WOULD be an ecosystem... just as rich as a "real" one.. provided the universe is nothing but a bunch of related events. But that's a big assumption... we don't yet know if such a simulation is possible.
But math is nothing but symbols in the first place.. the purest math is just symbols, not numbers.
1 is a symbol, so is 2, so is 3. So is i, so is pi.
Why does this make you think there is a supreme being, with a plan? Just beause things work out?
The balance and beauty of nature and all that?
OF COURSE there is a pattern, and things work out. Look at evolution.
You take a puddle in the middle of nowhere.. it has an ecosystem in it with a perfectly balanced population (too many, it dries up, too few, they reproduce...). Would these little creatures say "Oh wow! Look how there is JUST enough water for each of us! There must be a GOD!".... silly, right?
Nature seems balanced in the world, becuase that world produced nature... they are intertwined, infinitely.
Irrational numbers only seem strange because of the way we choose to look at things... the fact that it doesn't reduce to some fraction in our counting system doesn't *mean* anything holy or significant....
The fibonacci series and the golden ratio are related? Sure are.
(The ratio of successive numbers in the fib. series approaches the golden ratio as you go upwards)
But it's not so weird, is it? A sunflower.. the way it grows, it builds on itself.. in a spiral... naturally following this series.
Is it some grand creator that made it that way, or is it just the plain, obvious way for something to grow?
What would be evidence of a creator would be if things did NOT follow what was natural and obvious. If these things did NOT follow the golden ratio and other straight math.. if we could find no explanation for why things had a weird ratio, or weird behavior.. no explanation from the current or possible past enviroment to explain how something evolved.... come to me with that, then we can talk about a creator.
Until then, i'ts just nature.
Though this sounds really interesting to me personally...
I understand assembly language. I understand how the computer works on it's lowest levels, more so than most programmers I've met.
Does that make me a good programmer? Hell no..at least not in anything other than assembly.
Now.. learning some assembly and some low level stuff is GOOD for a programmer to know, to really understand what's up and take away the magic black box.... but it won't make you a good programmer.
It doens't help me understand, say, java.
Or C++.
IT does make C and pointers a bit easier to understand.. as well as things like memory allocation.. but other than that, nope.
Hardly..
a simple raw socket will do.
I said "usually" buried, not "always" buried.
I've used this in the past.. but it's only real value is that nobody knows you are doing it. Someone with a sniffer and a brain can figure it out.
In the end, it's only a gimmick. If you have to knock a few ports.. that can be sniffed out, just like a password. Though it might seem at first like it's more secure, it's not.. it just adds obscurity.
Now.. obscurity of this nature does have some value... it's obscurity.. and not likely to be detected by some script kiddie...
but don't kid yourself into thinking this is revolutionary, or in any technical way more secure. It's not.
I have seen this first hand.... but to blame google is wrong.
The problem is these businesses chose to depend on google and only google for their web hits...all their marketing eggs in one basket, so to speak.
Yarr! I got set off by the first +5 that said this was not over the grid.....
:)
sorry
It's COOL... dammit...
The fiber network is not everywhere.... do you think they have fiber on every pole? (fiber is usually buried, btw)
Backbone == NOC. They are using medium voltage power lines as a large network between their backbone and the access points... the article headline, despite being on slashdot, is acccurate.
These wireless "boxes" convert data so they can be sent THROUGH THE GRID...... and onto the company's backbone.
GRID == power grid.
The backbone is not everywhere.. the "backbone" is just somefiber link they have at a NOC to some other isps.
They are indeed using power line data transmission for this... that's what the entire project is about, and the only reason it is significant.
This does indeed use the power lines. Read more carefully.
+5 my ass.
"These wireless "boxes" convert data so they can be sent through the grid and on to PUC's fibre-optic backbone, which connects to the Internet. Home computers equipped with 802.11b or "Wi-Fi" wireless access cards and within 150 metres of these access points will be able to use the service."
In what way is the headline inaccurate? This is the first semi-large test of using the power grid as a network distribution medium.