I agree that we need to protect our liberties and I agree that we need to tighten our borders. I didn't say anything about taking guns away from the citizenry (except for convicted felons perhaps).
The concept of "guest workers" confounds me, we have outsourced so many jobs and we have brought in people from other countries to do work unemployed Americans could do that I really wonder how this helps America at all. I know the argument; "These people are doing work citizens don't want to do" but I just don't buy it. I see foreign IT workers coding and providing support services knowing full well that they are taking jobs away from my neighbors. Since a lot of this work is done off shore, it also means that the income generated by these people is not taxed by our government. Why are we allowing good jobs to go to India?
The point of my post is that it is possible to use new technology to provide an ID card that would be more helpful to the "good guys" while limiting the usefulness of the card to "bad guys." It actually does require us to trust our government a bit but, we already have to do that. Still, I don't hold out a lot of hope that the government's plan will really carry the value they promise (although technically, I think it could).
If this card could speed up the processing time for air travel that would be a good thing. If the card could reduce identity theft, that would be a good thing. If the card was versatile enough so that it would have multiple uses for multiple agencies at different levels of government, that would be a great thing. If the one card could be like a driver's license, a taxpayer id, a pistol permit, and a carry permit, that would be a great thing.
While I think that those of us who work in technology need to feel free to speak up when we see a flawed idea, sometimes I think that perhaps we lay our concern on a little too thick. The vast majority of us in the United States already carry some sort of government sponsored ID (and in many cases, more than one kind). These pieces of paper or plastic are for the most part, old technology. They provide limited information that may prove helpful to authorities who need to know something about you but that is about it.
Perhaps it is time to develop a more useful document. One that is far more difficult to forge, that can provide authorized people with access to the information that they need while at the same time keeping your private information out of reach to unauthorized individuals. As a bonus, the document should be able to be remotely invalidated in the event it is lost or stolen.
The document itself would actually have to have far less information on it than our current identifications do, that means that in the event of loss or theft, it would be harder for the common criminal to turn it to their advantage. Additionally, a centralized repository could log every request for information allowing authorities to look for patterns that would indicate abuse of the system.
Perhaps RFID would play a role, but so could barcodes or mag stripes or a printed code of some sort or maybe a combination of all of these. The card would still have a photo and basic information about the person on it but any authority with the need to could check the database for a digital photo and additional information. Depending on the authorities need, they would have access to different information. Homeland Security would see different information than the cop on the beat and so on.
Of course all of this means that we have to trust our government. The truth is, we already have to. The government already knows anything and everything that it wants to about me and different agencies within the government know different things about me. I'm sure if the need exists, that they already share "my" informaton. If the FBI wants to know something about me they can go through the channels and ask the IRS and low and behold, the FBI will know where I work, what I do, and how much I made last year.
We could already be living in a virtual police state and not even know it! My parinoid side says we probably already do. But then I look at the intellegence gathering that I know our government does about "bigger fish" and I know I really have very little to worry about. We can't find Osama, we had a hard time finding Saddam and, we always have people on the ten most wanted list.
I want a safer country. If the powers that be say a new and improved National ID card will help them fix some of the problems, why would I argue? Still, I don't expect it to fix much of anything. It is another hole into which our government will pour money with dubious results. That is what I expect. Even that may be expecting too much.
While I agree that 256GB on a sheet of paper is probably a scam, I find parts of the story to be an interesting idea. The barcode is ubiquitious but it stores a limited amount of information. Some specialty codes can store a great deal more information in a much smaller area in black and white (like the UPS scatter code). Adding color and using geometric shapes seems like it could increase density by a factor of three or better (just considering color).
This kind of encoding and scanning probably isn't for everyone. A barcode can convey information that can be stored in a database - so a small amount of data (in essence a serial number) can convey a great deal of information. For inhouse applications, like storing the location of a particular pallet in a warehouse for instance this is more than adequate. But for applications where you want to share information with others outside of your network, a great deal more data may need to be contained - like when providing a lot of steel from a foundary to a manufacturing plant. In this case, you may need to provide a large amount of data to an outside company that you do not want to have access to your network data. Info that goes beyon simple dimension data, stuff like formulation data, lot number, and manufacturing date.
Paper is much cheaper than RFID and has stood the test of time. It is in many ways the ideal medium for data exchange between two entities. It has served this exact purpose for centuries.
Yes, I know it is more APC than any individual would ever store but it was stored in accordance with code by professionals who did not want this to happen yet it did.
Been there but please dont take this personal
on
IT and Divorce?
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· Score: 1
First: Do you really think that this is a subject that you should be writing a thesis on? While you are experiencing it, that in this case, does not make you an expert. It makes you a person with an opinion, a person with a stake in it, a person suffering through it. It is like a typical cancer paitent writing a medical thesis on their particular malignancy. To me, a thesis like this should be written by someone with a background in social work.
I've been married three times and divorced twice, with kids involved in both divorces. Sure work had something to do with it. But then again so did every single aspect of our lives. If you are blaming your job, I'd ask you to look inward and see what the job has done to you. Divorce happens because two people can no longer get along. This may happen because of communications, it may happen because the two of you become "different people" or because you have changed in some other fundamental way. Or maybe it was a difference you were able to overlook back when the sex was so damned good.
Look no further than yourself, you will find the answers there when you are ready to be honest with yourself.
Divorce is no fun and it is seldom just one person's fault. It does not need to ruin you though. Get over it and get on with your life. If you want to write the thesis as an act of self-discovery, do it but don't burden your prof with it because he will see it for what it is and that is most assuridly not a thesis but rather an auto-biography of one persons rather difficult and probably bitter experience.
One of the earliest descriptions of the internet that I can recall sticking with the public is "The Information Superhighway." I think it is an apt analogy. Information (and even disinformation) flows across the internet very much like cars travel down a freeway.
What the cable and telecommunications companys want to do is turn their networks into toll roads, charging the big information providers a toll for every byte of data they send down high-speed wires. For those of us who don't have the need for speed or quanity, they say that they will not charge us for access. Uh-huh, that is why the scalped us so badly on long distance charges for so many years -- right? Sure I will believe them, uh-huh.
If the internet had not yet been built, had the business plan not already been implimented, then I could see how they could have an argument but, they have already built it and have already accepted the business plan. They should not be allowed to change it now! They knew what they were getting into when they built it and it is now part of the national infrastructure just like the freeways are.
If the telcos and the cable companys want to build something else, another different internet then let them do that and charge access for it. Perhaps they could add speed and services (like improved security?) that could make it worth an access charge. If something like this were done, I'd accept it.
tHERE ARE A NUMBER OF REASONS WHY THE caps lock KEY SHOULD NOT BE ELIMINATED. iN THIS POST i WILL ONLY TOUCH ON THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES. i'M SURE THAT MANY OF YOU CAN THINK OF OTHER REASONS. iF YOU CAN, PLEASE REPLY TO THIS POST WITH YOUR REASONS TOO.
1. tHE CAPS LOCK KEY IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT KEEPS ENTRY-LEVEL i.t. JOBS AVAILABLE. iF IT WASN'T FOR MIS-TYPED PASSWORDS CAUSED BY THE CAPS KEY BEING STUCK ON MANY "hELP dESK" POSITIONS COULD BE ELIMINATED. tHESE POSITIONS ARE FERTILE TRAINING GROUNDS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE JUST ENTERED THE JOB MARKET OUT OF TECHNICAL SCHOOL OR COLLEGE.
2. tHE SAME THING IS TRUE FOR OUT-SOURCED tECHNICAL sUPPORT POSITIONS IN COUNTRIED LIKE INDIA. iF THE CAPS LOCK KEY WERE ELIMINATED THEY WOULD LOSE ABOUT 25% OF THEIR CALLS TOO.
3. tHE caps lock KEY MAKES IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO yell AND EXPRESS EMOTIONS IN FORUMS AND CHAT ROOMS.
4. tHE caps lock KEY IS IMPORTANT FOR HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBILITY. iT IS EVERY BIT AS IMPORTANT AS THOSE BRAILE KEYS ON THE DRIVE-UP atm MACHINE.
5. wITHOUT THE caps lock KEY, THE pRINT sCREEN / sYS rEQ KEY WOULD BE LONELY.
It can happen so quickly and easily that when it happens you don't even know that it has happened. The cut doesn't hurt as badly as you would imagine, in my case it felt like I was touched with a feather. It was just a very light brushing sensation although my mind knew immediately what had happened.
I was very lucky, I did not cut any bone and I only lost a strip of tissue about an inch long, maybe 3/8's of an inch deep and 3/32's of an inch wide out of my thumb. Still it was a sobering experience that left a piece of expensive oak ruined (not to mention the blood rushing out of my thumb). What happened is that I was making numerous identical cuts and I got a bit bored and for just a moment I didn't think.
I try not to be stupid around power tools; I am not a professional, just a hobbyist and am very aware of my relationship to my tools. While I have learned to trust them, I have also learned to distrust them and always try to be as safe as possible. I think that the table saw is probably one of the more dangerous tools in the typical wood shop simply because there are so many times when you have to work with this guard removed or you are tempted to make a fine adjustment with the power on.
I am frankly a bit offended by the industries lack of enthusiasm for this kind of product (although on the flip side, I also understand that it would make every new saw much more expensive). The power tool industry is very aware that their products can cause serious injury (up to and including the loss of life). When they have an opportunity to make their products cheaper, they are morally obliged to do so. While this high-tech solution my have some shortfalls, it is obviously a step in the right direction. I suspect that the industry can find ways of making similar safety devices that work in different ways if they want to or are "encouraged" to. .
I am not a very religious man but, I am a man of faith; I do believe in God and by extension, I believe in my fellow man and the planet that God created and provided for us. For eons we have survived, and even thrived in what at times seems like a very hostile environment. We have learned a great deal from those who came before us and, I am sure that those who come after us will continue to build on what we have learned and will also learn how to avoid the mistakes that we have made. This after all is the very nature of man and is what really sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom (many of whom will also survive the next hundred years).
Not only am I convinced that we will survive for another century, I also have faith that we will thrive like we never have before. Advances in medicine will find cures for many illnesses, advances in technology will address many of the problems that vex us today will be resolved. If we run out of oil, we will deal with it with the ingenuity that our species is known for, probably with the help of technology and perhaps with societal pressures to conserve and use resources wisely.
All of this is well and good but it is not enough alone to assure our survival for another century! With rouge nations and terrorist organizations that have the power and technology to take many lives we need something more. Sadly, it is conceivable that the next war could be one of "biblical proportions" that could wipe out mankind. We need to make sure that our world leaders are bright, well advised men that do not operate in a vacuum.
Finally, I will get to the one thing that convinces me that mankind in general will make it for the next millennia. That one thing is love. I know it sounds schmaltzy but, it is a unifying force that will drive us towards a more perfect world. We want to make the world a better place, not necessarily for us but for our children and their children. While people aren't perfect, God gave us one thing that is - love. In the end, it is our love that will triumph. Our fallibility as humans will stop short of destroying us because we will realize that those who we love need to be protected from destruction. As a people, we will not destroy ourselves. Perhaps this is not very scientific but it is a deep truth.
A few years ago, maybe more than a few years ago, Seagate had massive problems with the lubricant in their 20 MEG hard drives. In essence, the lube was slung to the edge of the platter where it built a little ridge and then the head would run in to it as it parked. This made the head "stick" and rendered the hard drive unreliable. Frequently if we held the hdd just right we could unstick it with a gentle rap on a table edge.
The moment I read this article, I thought of the old stiction problem. Maybe this is unfair but, when your gut tells you something, it is usually right to trust it until proven wrong. I think I will avoid the first models of these drives. I'll let someone else lose hundreds of gigs of unbacked up data. But, maybe I am just paranoid. But heat and dried up lube just doesn't sound like good reliable HDD technology to me.
The state that I live in (Minnesota) has laws against scalping. The law as I understand it (IANAL) says that it is against the law to charge more for a ticket than the face value of the ticket. Since these tickets being auctioned off like this in essence have no face value until the auction closes, I wonder if this will be seen as a way to skirt the law legally or if they will find that it is illegal.
I have always suspected that something underhanded goes on with many ticket sales anyway. I know that there are pre-sales and that many times sponsors get the best tickets (which are simply never offered up for sale to the public at all). Frankly, I've thought these steps to be pretty slimy. There are however always great seats available from out-of-state ticket vendors, the tickets are expensive but available if you want to pay hundreds of bucks for a fifty dollar ticket. How do these vendors get such choice seats to sold out events? How can they deliver dozens or even hundreds of tickets to medium to large venues for sold out shows? How can they do this time and time again? Something is crooked.
The internet is full of people using computers. Some people are competent, others are not; some people are honest and others are crooks. There are some technically advanced, unethical people on the internet who will try to take advantage of the "suckers." What better place to find suckers than on IM channels - which are loaded with the younger set (many of which are gullible).
Since the internet is not centeral to any one government it is difficult to regulate which is both good and bad. The structure of the internet is quite versitile and is almost by design intened to be exploited (not just by bad guys but by anyone with a new or different idea on how to use it). This openess is what allows us to do so many different things on our computers but it is in and of itself a basic security weakness. One that as a community we have to decide on how we want to address it. Do we want some sort of international treaty that limits the use of the internet? Would doing this impede the creation of new ideas? If so, is the trade-off worth it? Would the crooks just find a different way around it? Could we impliment some sort of voting system where we could cast bad netizens off of the net? Could that work? If so, how could we keep that from being exploited by people with different agendas? Could some sort of system be developed where executables could be rated kind of like movies so that we would know before we executed them that they we either safe, somewhat risky, or downright dangerous? Could something like this be used by big business to impose their own will on the competition like Microsoft does with device drivers?
Like most people, I work to make sure that I keep my computer as safe as possible. I use security software, I have a firewall, and I am cautious about what I open. Still, I have been stung. It saddens me to know that criminals are always out there thinking up new ways to hurt people for fun or profit. I'd love to see them get caught and serve time in jail. But, there is another part of me that says that for every action we take to protect ourselves against them there is another reaction that is just as harmful to the internet as the crimes that they commit. I am convinced that no matter what we do to prevent them from doing something that they will work hard to find some new and possibly more dangerous way to exploit us.
I don't know what the answer is to all of this. I have far more questions than answers but I do know that there is a sucker born every minute and behind every corner there is someone waiting to exploit that sucker. This is true in the real world and on the internet too. For now, the best protection that you can have is to watch out for yourself and try not to be a sucker. Use the tools that are available to you to protect yourself (the most important tool is your brain) and think before you click!
Several years ago I spoke with a friend of mine who went to work in the security department of a major retailer as a programmer. The project that he was working on was to design a system that would detect motions that would identify shoplifters, thieves, and other bad guys (like thieving employees). They used things like furtive movements and a person's route through the store to trigger the system that would sound the alarm and bring the camera online to a security officer. They used hundreds of hours of security video showing crooks doing their work to vet the system and they had it working pretty well. I would imagine that this is a system similar to what they are doing at the airport.
He did share some humorous observations about this work. The system would frequently target completely innocent little old ladies as potential shoplifters. Apparently their movements while on a routine shopping trip were quite similar to a crooks and the system was not able to differentiate between them.
I am not going to differentiate between nano-tech and nano-particles here even though I understand there is a difference between the two, but in the case of this post, I don't think the two terms need to be differentiated. To do so would be hair-splitting.
I can see how the FDA could regulate nano-tech if it is an ingredient in food, medicine, cosmetics or if it is a "medical device". I can not see how they would be involved if it was a more "industrial" component (say an ingredient in paint or a component in some high tech alloy).
It is the use more than the component that really makes a difference here. I really doubt that nano-tech used in electronics will ever be considered able to be regulated by the FDA until it is incorporated into something like a pacemaker.
I hope I am correct in this but with our current state of government in the U.S.A. it is really hard to tell. It is probably only a matter of time until the FDA comes under the umbrella of "Homeland Security" then who knows what will happen.
As I read the article it occured to me that the spammers won mostly because of one thing. Blue Security was centralized. If a similar service operated in a manner similar to a BitTorrent where each client was also a mini-server could attack succeed? The problem that I see here is that the mini-servers would still need to be controlled and would need to have some sort of remote update ability. It would I suppose also be difficult to keep them all adequately sinchronized - bout would these problems be insurmountable? I'd think not but I am no expert. I'd think the old Kaazza client would be a good example to start from...
The possibility that it would be difficult to profit from something like this may be more of a problem than the technical challenges. Maybe this makes it an ideal candidate for open source? Again, I am no expert. I really am hoping to spur some discussion more than anything else.
I wish that when you encountered a phishing site that you could go to a credit card company's anti-fraud site and be issued a card number and verification information that would appear to be legit (and would even be verifiable) but would in actuality be a trojan that would sound fraud alarms if it was attempted to be used.
The way that I see it, these cards would be very low limit cards so that when a verification was done on them they would pass through but when something of actual value would go through, they would trigger an over the limit message and would also set off a fraud alarm at the credit card company.
Because the phishers would have no way of knowing the difference between a "valid" card and a "trojan" card, information on the cards attempted use could be collected at the front end and at the back end. This would allow investigators to have two opportunities to trap the scumbags and would also help to create a map of the way things are being worked. With any luck at all they can use the low-level players that they catch to extract information from and go after the bigger fish in the middle. You could look at it like you are phishing the phishers!
The pressure that this would exert should send the crooks looking for other less risky targets.
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The next idea is more logistical: I've recieved calls from Visa fraud prevention on a few occasions when I have made unusual purchases. I really appreciate this service and know that it is expensive for them to do. I'd think that if they automated this a bit that they could do more of it at a lower cost. Using IVR they could call a representitive sample of customers and just verify routine purchases that have been made at higher risk places (like on-line and businesses that have experienced fraud).
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They could also have a system that could co-authorize specific kinds of purchases, especially online purchases or purchases that you make that you have shipped to different addresses. I would not feel inconvenienced by the extra step if I knew that I was helping to prevent fraud.
The way that I envision it is that you would be informed by the merchant that you must okay the purchase by calling a toll free number and entering a code from the order verification from your home phone or cel phone that is on record at the credit card company.
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Crime costs all of us. We pay for it because retailers have to build in additional costs to cover their losses that result from theft (including fraud and shoplifting). These costs drive up our costs. These losses even affect our paychecks. If a retailer can't raise the costs to cover his losses, then he may have to shave off a little somewhere else. The most logical place for that is his biggest expense which is most likely labor. If he has suffered losses, he may not be able to give you as big a raise as he otherwise may or maybe he will have to cut back on his benefit package. It pays if we all do a little bit extra to prevent losses. If you encounter fraud, don't ignore it, report it.
We need to break our addiction to foreign oil. Reducing or eliminating a tax on imported ethanol is a temporary stop-gap "fix" that will help to reduce the cost of fuel at the pump a little bit which may help us to buy some time while we work on other things that can help address the real problem. For that reason alone, at this time, it is a good idea for the United States.
Making ethanol fuels more available and less expensive will help to speed the adoption of ethanol blended fuels on the coasts and also help to speed the adoption of E-85 for those newer flex-fuel vehicles. Making this fuel more affordable will help to speed it's adoption and will create the demand that will allow gas stations to justify the expense of installing new pumps and tanks. All of this is good.
Sugar cane is a crop that can be grown in much of the United States. Over time we can start to produce ethanol from it (and other sources) allowing us to produce more of our energy domestically which is good for our economy and will allow us to be less dependant on foreign energy which will be a great economic stabilizer meaning that over-seas economic pressures can not hurt us as badly. This is a very good thing.
It is just as vital that we develop other sources of energy as well. Dependance on any single commodity puts us at risk - if we hinged our energy economy on ethanol from sugar cane and there was a crop failure, our economy could suffer badly. Therefore we have to develop other near-term solutions as well. For transportation fuels these solutions should include coal gasification, ethanol from cellulose, thermal depolymerization and bio-diesel. We do not need to completely ignore conventional oil, there are still a number of domestic sources of this energy available. If we look at energy as a North American issue rather than a national issue, the Alberta Oil Sands could provide us with a great deal of conventional oil. With the CO2 produced from coal gasification conventional oil wells can be returned to production. There are also untapped sources of oil on Alaska's environmentally sensitive North Shore. Tapping these resources is economically feasible but is a politically sensitive and highly charged issue. With high fuel prices and our economy suffering from it, the politicians may find North Shore exploitation more acceptable with their constituents.
We should not count out gaseous fuels such as hydrogen, propane, and natural gas as transportation fuels but I see them as being either niche players or, further out in development. For the foreseeable future, I think most transportation fuels will be liquid because they are easier and safer to handle, transport, and use.
Energy is not just about transportation, we also use energy to heat and cool our homes, to manufacture things, and to save labor in many different ways. Stationary powerplants can use different kinds of fuels - everything from biomass (Including garbage) to nuclear power!
Because of issues with safety and waste disposal, nuclear power plants have not been built in the United States in several decades. These dynamics may be changing. Nuclear reactors are very efficient, it is estimated that one pound of enriched uranium produces the same amount of electrical energy as 800,000 tons of coal. Pebble bed nuclear reactors have been proven safe and effective. In the United States, the Yucca Mountain Repository is expected to start accepting radioactive waste for long term storage (disposal) in 2010. For all of these reasons, in the recent past some notable environmentalists have come out in favor of building a new generation of nuclear reactors.
Energy is an important part of modern life. The way we make it and the way we use it has to evolve and adapt. If it doesn't we will make it too valuable a commodity and we will be unable to afford it. Failure to change and adapt will without a doubt cause of a great deal of pain and suffering. We are reaching a point where we can no longer just talk about it. We need to take action that will help us now and we have to find ways to go forward using different fuels, methods, and processes. If we don't, we will wither away.
Run over their dog on the way out of the driveway.
There are some things I miss from way back
on
Gadgets, Then & Now
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· Score: 5, Interesting
I already know some of you will just think I'm an old fart fondly remembering a simpler time and confuse it for a better time but that really isn't what I'm trying to do here.
I liked the styling risks that some companies took back then. I get the sense that it was easier to take risks with consumer products back then.
My favorite car radio of all times was the Sanyo Tachard radio. It was shaped like a tachometer and locked with a key so that you could remove it. There were a couple of different models, I think one was 8 watts and the other was 32 watts. For the day, the sound quality was excellent and it made the inside of my Fiat 850 Spyder look almost space age.
RCA made a bedroom stereo that looked like an astronaut's helmet! When you lifted the face shield, the eyes were the controls, the nose the frequency dial, and the mouth was the eight-track deck.
Initial technology was always interesting too:
The VIC-20 from Comodore was an exceptional started computer that didn't cost an arm and a leg. It ran a form of basic that was fun to learn and use. It really was a toy and could be used to play games.
The Sinclair ZX-80 was an ultimate cheap computer. In many ways it was terrible (especially the keyboard) but it represented a starting point for so many inventive people to perform exparaments and modifications that I have to say it did a lot for the hobby computer industry and probably launched more people into computer related careers than anything else ever has.
Sometimes what was right and what was commercially successful were in two different worlds.
The eight-track won out over the cassette at first, despite the fact that it was more complex and lower quality. It litterally took a decade for people to wake up!
Sony Betamax was hands down better than VHS. It was visibly superior and actually less complex.
Communications technology was always a big deal.
My grandfather was a big baseball fan. For Christmas one year he was given a transistor AM radio with one of those really lousy ear-pieces. From April through October it was almost welded to his ear. It was that big a part of his life, I would even call it a life-changing thing for him. He no longer had to miss the game no matter where he went.
My friend was the first on the block to get color TV. I was so jealous! One night we watched a cop show on his TV and the flashing lights were blue - which made no sense to me because where I was from all cop cars, fire trucks, and ambulances had red lights. It really confused me.
My hometown was fairly small and dial phone technology came late. I was able to pick up the phone and tell Sarah, the operator that I wanted to talk to my mom and she would actually track her down or if she couldn't she would offer to call one of my grandparents for me! This is one place where technology may actually have been a hinderance for small towns. Today, the operator is likely in a different time-zone and has no knowlege of your town.
My dad was a volinteer fireman and we had a "fire phone" in our home for years. If the phone rang steady, you picked up the phone and listened and you would hear the actual person reporting the fire or, in the event of a "second alarm" or "mutual aid" call a dispatcher. Us kids were taught to always listen if dad was home or to try to ignore the call if he wasn't (we always listened). Most of the cafes and bars in town were also wired into the fire phone system so that they could pass the word to their fire-fighting customers. I think today's system is far superior to the old solution but not nearly as much fun.
My '64 Buick had a speed buzzer and auto-dimming headlights. Features I loved. I would almost rather have the buzzer than cruise control today. I really wish my truck had auto-dimming headlights. I am really glad that it corners better and stops faster than my '64 Buick did though. Believe it or not, my 2000 Dodge 5.2L RAM gets about the same MPG as my '64 Buick did and, the '64 Buick had a 401 CID "Wildcat 445" engine and a 4bbl carb!
When traveling for work, I frequently found myself packing two laptops, a printer, a switch or two and about a half a mile of cables, a couple of cel phones, digital cameras, disks, papers, tools and you name it. At the time, I would be hitting the road for a few days every week. Everything was as compact and as light as I could make it but it all still added up.
One day I was in the grocery store and stumbled across the solution. This particular store had an area where they sold odd-ball stuff that you don't usually find in grocery stores - they offered these things at really low prices and I picked up a three piece American Tourister soft-sided luggage set (in a maroon color) for next to nothing. They "nested" one inside of the other and had wheels. I used the biggest one to tote everything. I used pieces of foam backed carpet glued onto luan plywood as separator pieces and stuck a piece of this into the pocket in the inside lid of the case and a piece in the back, between the frame thing for the handle. What I ended up with was a "semi-soft-sided" piece of luggage that was better able to protect the equipment. It held everything I needed to carry and even allowed me to use the outside pockets to store things in.
I've never had any damage, I check it when I get on the airplane and when it comes off of the baggage thing at the airport, I can tell immediately that it is mine, there are so few maroon bags that I can find mine right away.
Also, these bags can snap together one piggybacking on the other so that I only have one thing to drag through the airport. This is a feature that I love because when you try to drag two side by side you look like a one person Laurel and Hardy show.
It almost seems as the Apple/Microsoft story may be based on the fable "The Tortoise and the Hare." For years, Microsoft ran away with everything while Apple just seemed to sort of plod along, managing to dodge the bankruptcy bullet on more than one occasion. Their hardware was mostly ignored but those who took the time to look were impressed with the quality and performance of it. All in all, the faithful said the Apple was a well run company that produced quality goods but suffered from bouts of lackluster results. Despite it all, Apple kept at it, working hard, developing products and doing their level best. Along the way, IBM and Microsoft sort of lost steam, IBM sold itself out of the consumer market while Microsoft missed goals and suffered delay after delay, pushing their most promising new product releases into the future causing some people to claim that their latest products are just a step above vaporware.
Apple in the meantime has done a wonderful job of making and selling a couple of notable products and services. Their war-chest is stuffed with a pile of money and they are now bringing a real product to market that is designed to compete with the PC industry (including the Microsoft juggernaut) head to head. From all appearances, it looks like Apple Inc. is primed to steal market share from the big boys in the PC industry (Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft, and so on). What they are offering is good hardware, stellar marketing, and impressive timing. Everyone who loves their iPod is a potential customer! Especially if the Apple hardware in someway improves the perceived value of their other Apple stuff (or makes it easier to use). The executives at Apple are quite shrewd and astute businessmen, they know what they are doing and they have a plan.
I'm not counting Microsoft out, they will continue to command the lion's share of the market, but Apple has become a foe that they don't quite know how to deal with. It is as if the little ankle biting dog suddenly got bigger and more aggressive when nobody was looking! Still, Apple is not putting down a full court press frontal attack on Microsoft, they are in a sense, sharing - perhaps that is what "Boot Camp" is all about (I don't know, and I'm not even exactly speculating, I am floating a question). Are the Apple execs positioning their company as a non-enemy so that if Microsoft were to suddenly flex their muscle, they would look like the innocent ninety-eight pound weakling being bullied by the big kid? That could be good for marketing!
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I agree that we need to protect our liberties and I agree that we need to tighten our borders. I didn't say anything about taking guns away from the citizenry (except for convicted felons perhaps).
The concept of "guest workers" confounds me, we have outsourced so many jobs and we have brought in people from other countries to do work unemployed Americans could do that I really wonder how this helps America at all. I know the argument; "These people are doing work citizens don't want to do" but I just don't buy it. I see foreign IT workers coding and providing support services knowing full well that they are taking jobs away from my neighbors. Since a lot of this work is done off shore, it also means that the income generated by these people is not taxed by our government. Why are we allowing good jobs to go to India?
The point of my post is that it is possible to use new technology to provide an ID card that would be more helpful to the "good guys" while limiting the usefulness of the card to "bad guys." It actually does require us to trust our government a bit but, we already have to do that. Still, I don't hold out a lot of hope that the government's plan will really carry the value they promise (although technically, I think it could).
If this card could speed up the processing time for air travel that would be a good thing. If the card could reduce identity theft, that would be a good thing. If the card was versatile enough so that it would have multiple uses for multiple agencies at different levels of government, that would be a great thing. If the one card could be like a driver's license, a taxpayer id, a pistol permit, and a carry permit, that would be a great thing.
While I think that those of us who work in technology need to feel free to speak up when we see a flawed idea, sometimes I think that perhaps we lay our concern on a little too thick. The vast majority of us in the United States already carry some sort of government sponsored ID (and in many cases, more than one kind). These pieces of paper or plastic are for the most part, old technology. They provide limited information that may prove helpful to authorities who need to know something about you but that is about it.
Perhaps it is time to develop a more useful document. One that is far more difficult to forge, that can provide authorized people with access to the information that they need while at the same time keeping your private information out of reach to unauthorized individuals. As a bonus, the document should be able to be remotely invalidated in the event it is lost or stolen.
The document itself would actually have to have far less information on it than our current identifications do, that means that in the event of loss or theft, it would be harder for the common criminal to turn it to their advantage. Additionally, a centralized repository could log every request for information allowing authorities to look for patterns that would indicate abuse of the system.
Perhaps RFID would play a role, but so could barcodes or mag stripes or a printed code of some sort or maybe a combination of all of these. The card would still have a photo and basic information about the person on it but any authority with the need to could check the database for a digital photo and additional information. Depending on the authorities need, they would have access to different information. Homeland Security would see different information than the cop on the beat and so on.
Of course all of this means that we have to trust our government. The truth is, we already have to. The government already knows anything and everything that it wants to about me and different agencies within the government know different things about me. I'm sure if the need exists, that they already share "my" informaton. If the FBI wants to know something about me they can go through the channels and ask the IRS and low and behold, the FBI will know where I work, what I do, and how much I made last year.
We could already be living in a virtual police state and not even know it! My parinoid side says we probably already do. But then I look at the intellegence gathering that I know our government does about "bigger fish" and I know I really have very little to worry about. We can't find Osama, we had a hard time finding Saddam and, we always have people on the ten most wanted list.
I want a safer country. If the powers that be say a new and improved National ID card will help them fix some of the problems, why would I argue? Still, I don't expect it to fix much of anything. It is another hole into which our government will pour money with dubious results. That is what I expect. Even that may be expecting too much.
While I agree that 256GB on a sheet of paper is probably a scam, I find parts of the story to be an interesting idea. The barcode is ubiquitious but it stores a limited amount of information. Some specialty codes can store a great deal more information in a much smaller area in black and white (like the UPS scatter code). Adding color and using geometric shapes seems like it could increase density by a factor of three or better (just considering color).
This kind of encoding and scanning probably isn't for everyone. A barcode can convey information that can be stored in a database - so a small amount of data (in essence a serial number) can convey a great deal of information. For inhouse applications, like storing the location of a particular pallet in a warehouse for instance this is more than adequate. But for applications where you want to share information with others outside of your network, a great deal more data may need to be contained - like when providing a lot of steel from a foundary to a manufacturing plant. In this case, you may need to provide a large amount of data to an outside company that you do not want to have access to your network data. Info that goes beyon simple dimension data, stuff like formulation data, lot number, and manufacturing date.
Paper is much cheaper than RFID and has stood the test of time. It is in many ways the ideal medium for data exchange between two entities. It has served this exact purpose for centuries.
Yes, I know it is more APC than any individual would ever store but it was stored in accordance with code by professionals who did not want this to happen yet it did.
First: Do you really think that this is a subject that you should be writing a thesis on? While you are experiencing it, that in this case, does not make you an expert. It makes you a person with an opinion, a person with a stake in it, a person suffering through it. It is like a typical cancer paitent writing a medical thesis on their particular malignancy. To me, a thesis like this should be written by someone with a background in social work.
I've been married three times and divorced twice, with kids involved in both divorces. Sure work had something to do with it. But then again so did every single aspect of our lives. If you are blaming your job, I'd ask you to look inward and see what the job has done to you. Divorce happens because two people can no longer get along. This may happen because of communications, it may happen because the two of you become "different people" or because you have changed in some other fundamental way. Or maybe it was a difference you were able to overlook back when the sex was so damned good.
Look no further than yourself, you will find the answers there when you are ready to be honest with yourself.
Divorce is no fun and it is seldom just one person's fault. It does not need to ruin you though. Get over it and get on with your life. If you want to write the thesis as an act of self-discovery, do it but don't burden your prof with it because he will see it for what it is and that is most assuridly not a thesis but rather an auto-biography of one persons rather difficult and probably bitter experience.
One of the earliest descriptions of the internet that I can recall sticking with the public is "The Information Superhighway." I think it is an apt analogy. Information (and even disinformation) flows across the internet very much like cars travel down a freeway.
What the cable and telecommunications companys want to do is turn their networks into toll roads, charging the big information providers a toll for every byte of data they send down high-speed wires. For those of us who don't have the need for speed or quanity, they say that they will not charge us for access. Uh-huh, that is why the scalped us so badly on long distance charges for so many years -- right? Sure I will believe them, uh-huh.
If the internet had not yet been built, had the business plan not already been implimented, then I could see how they could have an argument but, they have already built it and have already accepted the business plan. They should not be allowed to change it now! They knew what they were getting into when they built it and it is now part of the national infrastructure just like the freeways are.
If the telcos and the cable companys want to build something else, another different internet then let them do that and charge access for it. Perhaps they could add speed and services (like improved security?) that could make it worth an access charge. If something like this were done, I'd accept it.
I've already seen the ad on Time-Warner cable several times this morning.
tHERE ARE A NUMBER OF REASONS WHY THE caps lock KEY SHOULD NOT BE ELIMINATED. iN THIS POST i WILL ONLY TOUCH ON THE MOST IMPORTANT ONES. i'M SURE THAT MANY OF YOU CAN THINK OF OTHER REASONS. iF YOU CAN, PLEASE REPLY TO THIS POST WITH YOUR REASONS TOO.
1. tHE CAPS LOCK KEY IS IMPORTANT BECAUSE IT KEEPS ENTRY-LEVEL i.t. JOBS AVAILABLE.
iF IT WASN'T FOR MIS-TYPED PASSWORDS CAUSED BY THE CAPS KEY BEING STUCK ON MANY "hELP dESK" POSITIONS COULD BE ELIMINATED. tHESE POSITIONS ARE FERTILE TRAINING GROUNDS FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE JUST ENTERED THE JOB MARKET OUT OF TECHNICAL SCHOOL OR COLLEGE.
2. tHE SAME THING IS TRUE FOR OUT-SOURCED tECHNICAL sUPPORT POSITIONS IN COUNTRIED LIKE INDIA. iF THE CAPS LOCK KEY WERE ELIMINATED THEY WOULD LOSE ABOUT 25% OF THEIR CALLS TOO.
3. tHE caps lock KEY MAKES IT EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO yell AND EXPRESS EMOTIONS IN FORUMS AND CHAT ROOMS.
4. tHE caps lock KEY IS IMPORTANT FOR HANDICAPPED ACCESSIBILITY. iT IS EVERY BIT AS IMPORTANT AS THOSE BRAILE KEYS ON THE DRIVE-UP atm MACHINE.
5. wITHOUT THE caps lock KEY, THE pRINT sCREEN / sYS rEQ KEY WOULD BE LONELY.
It can happen so quickly and easily that when it happens you don't even know that it has happened. The cut doesn't hurt as badly as you would imagine, in my case it felt like I was touched with a feather. It was just a very light brushing sensation although my mind knew immediately what had happened.
I was very lucky, I did not cut any bone and I only lost a strip of tissue about an inch long, maybe 3/8's of an inch deep and 3/32's of an inch wide out of my thumb. Still it was a sobering experience that left a piece of expensive oak ruined (not to mention the blood rushing out of my thumb). What happened is that I was making numerous identical cuts and I got a bit bored and for just a moment I didn't think.
I try not to be stupid around power tools; I am not a professional, just a hobbyist and am very aware of my relationship to my tools. While I have learned to trust them, I have also learned to distrust them and always try to be as safe as possible. I think that the table saw is probably one of the more dangerous tools in the typical wood shop simply because there are so many times when you have to work with this guard removed or you are tempted to make a fine adjustment with the power on.
I am frankly a bit offended by the industries lack of enthusiasm for this kind of product (although on the flip side, I also understand that it would make every new saw much more expensive). The power tool industry is very aware that their products can cause serious injury (up to and including the loss of life). When they have an opportunity to make their products cheaper, they are morally obliged to do so. While this high-tech solution my have some shortfalls, it is obviously a step in the right direction. I suspect that the industry can find ways of making similar safety devices that work in different ways if they want to or are "encouraged" to. .
The good news is that one in three judges actually gets it.
I am not a very religious man but, I am a man of faith; I do believe in God and by extension, I believe in my fellow man and the planet that God created and provided for us. For eons we have survived, and even thrived in what at times seems like a very hostile environment. We have learned a great deal from those who came before us and, I am sure that those who come after us will continue to build on what we have learned and will also learn how to avoid the mistakes that we have made. This after all is the very nature of man and is what really sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom (many of whom will also survive the next hundred years).
Not only am I convinced that we will survive for another century, I also have faith that we will thrive like we never have before. Advances in medicine will find cures for many illnesses, advances in technology will address many of the problems that vex us today will be resolved. If we run out of oil, we will deal with it with the ingenuity that our species is known for, probably with the help of technology and perhaps with societal pressures to conserve and use resources wisely.
All of this is well and good but it is not enough alone to assure our survival for another century! With rouge nations and terrorist organizations that have the power and technology to take many lives we need something more. Sadly, it is conceivable that the next war could be one of "biblical proportions" that could wipe out mankind. We need to make sure that our world leaders are bright, well advised men that do not operate in a vacuum.
Finally, I will get to the one thing that convinces me that mankind in general will make it for the next millennia. That one thing is love. I know it sounds schmaltzy but, it is a unifying force that will drive us towards a more perfect world. We want to make the world a better place, not necessarily for us but for our children and their children. While people aren't perfect, God gave us one thing that is - love. In the end, it is our love that will triumph. Our fallibility as humans will stop short of destroying us because we will realize that those who we love need to be protected from destruction. As a people, we will not destroy ourselves. Perhaps this is not very scientific but it is a deep truth.
A few years ago, maybe more than a few years ago, Seagate had massive problems with the lubricant in their 20 MEG hard drives. In essence, the lube was slung to the edge of the platter where it built a little ridge and then the head would run in to it as it parked. This made the head "stick" and rendered the hard drive unreliable. Frequently if we held the hdd just right we could unstick it with a gentle rap on a table edge.
The moment I read this article, I thought of the old stiction problem. Maybe this is unfair but, when your gut tells you something, it is usually right to trust it until proven wrong. I think I will avoid the first models of these drives. I'll let someone else lose hundreds of gigs of unbacked up data. But, maybe I am just paranoid. But heat and dried up lube just doesn't sound like good reliable HDD technology to me.
The state that I live in (Minnesota) has laws against scalping. The law as I understand it (IANAL) says that it is against the law to charge more for a ticket than the face value of the ticket. Since these tickets being auctioned off like this in essence have no face value until the auction closes, I wonder if this will be seen as a way to skirt the law legally or if they will find that it is illegal.
I have always suspected that something underhanded goes on with many ticket sales anyway. I know that there are pre-sales and that many times sponsors get the best tickets (which are simply never offered up for sale to the public at all). Frankly, I've thought these steps to be pretty slimy. There are however always great seats available from out-of-state ticket vendors, the tickets are expensive but available if you want to pay hundreds of bucks for a fifty dollar ticket. How do these vendors get such choice seats to sold out events? How can they deliver dozens or even hundreds of tickets to medium to large venues for sold out shows? How can they do this time and time again? Something is crooked.
The internet is full of people using computers. Some people are competent, others are not; some people are honest and others are crooks. There are some technically advanced, unethical people on the internet who will try to take advantage of the "suckers." What better place to find suckers than on IM channels - which are loaded with the younger set (many of which are gullible).
Since the internet is not centeral to any one government it is difficult to regulate which is both good and bad. The structure of the internet is quite versitile and is almost by design intened to be exploited (not just by bad guys but by anyone with a new or different idea on how to use it). This openess is what allows us to do so many different things on our computers but it is in and of itself a basic security weakness. One that as a community we have to decide on how we want to address it. Do we want some sort of international treaty that limits the use of the internet? Would doing this impede the creation of new ideas? If so, is the trade-off worth it? Would the crooks just find a different way around it? Could we impliment some sort of voting system where we could cast bad netizens off of the net? Could that work? If so, how could we keep that from being exploited by people with different agendas? Could some sort of system be developed where executables could be rated kind of like movies so that we would know before we executed them that they we either safe, somewhat risky, or downright dangerous? Could something like this be used by big business to impose their own will on the competition like Microsoft does with device drivers?
Like most people, I work to make sure that I keep my computer as safe as possible. I use security software, I have a firewall, and I am cautious about what I open. Still, I have been stung. It saddens me to know that criminals are always out there thinking up new ways to hurt people for fun or profit. I'd love to see them get caught and serve time in jail. But, there is another part of me that says that for every action we take to protect ourselves against them there is another reaction that is just as harmful to the internet as the crimes that they commit. I am convinced that no matter what we do to prevent them from doing something that they will work hard to find some new and possibly more dangerous way to exploit us.
I don't know what the answer is to all of this. I have far more questions than answers but I do know that there is a sucker born every minute and behind every corner there is someone waiting to exploit that sucker. This is true in the real world and on the internet too. For now, the best protection that you can have is to watch out for yourself and try not to be a sucker. Use the tools that are available to you to protect yourself (the most important tool is your brain) and think before you click!
Several years ago I spoke with a friend of mine who went to work in the security department of a major retailer as a programmer. The project that he was working on was to design a system that would detect motions that would identify shoplifters, thieves, and other bad guys (like thieving employees). They used things like furtive movements and a person's route through the store to trigger the system that would sound the alarm and bring the camera online to a security officer. They used hundreds of hours of security video showing crooks doing their work to vet the system and they had it working pretty well. I would imagine that this is a system similar to what they are doing at the airport.
He did share some humorous observations about this work. The system would frequently target completely innocent little old ladies as potential shoplifters. Apparently their movements while on a routine shopping trip were quite similar to a crooks and the system was not able to differentiate between them.
I am not going to differentiate between nano-tech and nano-particles here even though I understand there is a difference between the two, but in the case of this post, I don't think the two terms need to be differentiated. To do so would be hair-splitting.
I can see how the FDA could regulate nano-tech if it is an ingredient in food, medicine, cosmetics or if it is a "medical device". I can not see how they would be involved if it was a more "industrial" component (say an ingredient in paint or a component in some high tech alloy).
It is the use more than the component that really makes a difference here. I really doubt that nano-tech used in electronics will ever be considered able to be regulated by the FDA until it is incorporated into something like a pacemaker.
I hope I am correct in this but with our current state of government in the U.S.A. it is really hard to tell. It is probably only a matter of time until the FDA comes under the umbrella of "Homeland Security" then who knows what will happen.
Yaeh, especially dihydrogen monoxide!
As I read the article it occured to me that the spammers won mostly because of one thing. Blue Security was centralized. If a similar service operated in a manner similar to a BitTorrent where each client was also a mini-server could attack succeed? The problem that I see here is that the mini-servers would still need to be controlled and would need to have some sort of remote update ability. It would I suppose also be difficult to keep them all adequately sinchronized - bout would these problems be insurmountable? I'd think not but I am no expert. I'd think the old Kaazza client would be a good example to start from...
The possibility that it would be difficult to profit from something like this may be more of a problem than the technical challenges. Maybe this makes it an ideal candidate for open source? Again, I am no expert. I really am hoping to spur some discussion more than anything else.
I wish that when you encountered a phishing site that you could go to a credit card company's anti-fraud site and be issued a card number and verification information that would appear to be legit (and would even be verifiable) but would in actuality be a trojan that would sound fraud alarms if it was attempted to be used.
The way that I see it, these cards would be very low limit cards so that when a verification was done on them they would pass through but when something of actual value would go through, they would trigger an over the limit message and would also set off a fraud alarm at the credit card company.
Because the phishers would have no way of knowing the difference between a "valid" card and a "trojan" card, information on the cards attempted use could be collected at the front end and at the back end. This would allow investigators to have two opportunities to trap the scumbags and would also help to create a map of the way things are being worked. With any luck at all they can use the low-level players that they catch to extract information from and go after the bigger fish in the middle. You could look at it like you are phishing the phishers!
The pressure that this would exert should send the crooks looking for other less risky targets.
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The next idea is more logistical: I've recieved calls from Visa fraud prevention on a few occasions when I have made unusual purchases. I really appreciate this service and know that it is expensive for them to do. I'd think that if they automated this a bit that they could do more of it at a lower cost. Using IVR they could call a representitive sample of customers and just verify routine purchases that have been made at higher risk places (like on-line and businesses that have experienced fraud).
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They could also have a system that could co-authorize specific kinds of purchases, especially online purchases or purchases that you make that you have shipped to different addresses. I would not feel inconvenienced by the extra step if I knew that I was helping to prevent fraud.
The way that I envision it is that you would be informed by the merchant that you must okay the purchase by calling a toll free number and entering a code from the order verification from your home phone or cel phone that is on record at the credit card company.
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Crime costs all of us. We pay for it because retailers have to build in additional costs to cover their losses that result from theft (including fraud and shoplifting). These costs drive up our costs. These losses even affect our paychecks. If a retailer can't raise the costs to cover his losses, then he may have to shave off a little somewhere else. The most logical place for that is his biggest expense which is most likely labor. If he has suffered losses, he may not be able to give you as big a raise as he otherwise may or maybe he will have to cut back on his benefit package. It pays if we all do a little bit extra to prevent losses. If you encounter fraud, don't ignore it, report it.
Does this mean that the operating temp range will be 32F - 212F (0C-100C)?
I would have said, If this is vaporware I'd be steamed...
I suppose this will give a whole new meaning to the term "The computer froze up"!
Will we litterally need a bit bucket for overflow?
I better stop now.
We need to break our addiction to foreign oil. Reducing or eliminating a tax on imported ethanol is a temporary stop-gap "fix" that will help to reduce the cost of fuel at the pump a little bit which may help us to buy some time while we work on other things that can help address the real problem. For that reason alone, at this time, it is a good idea for the United States.
Making ethanol fuels more available and less expensive will help to speed the adoption of ethanol blended fuels on the coasts and also help to speed the adoption of E-85 for those newer flex-fuel vehicles. Making this fuel more affordable will help to speed it's adoption and will create the demand that will allow gas stations to justify the expense of installing new pumps and tanks. All of this is good.
Sugar cane is a crop that can be grown in much of the United States. Over time we can start to produce ethanol from it (and other sources) allowing us to produce more of our energy domestically which is good for our economy and will allow us to be less dependant on foreign energy which will be a great economic stabilizer meaning that over-seas economic pressures can not hurt us as badly. This is a very good thing.
It is just as vital that we develop other sources of energy as well. Dependance on any single commodity puts us at risk - if we hinged our energy economy on ethanol from sugar cane and there was a crop failure, our economy could suffer badly. Therefore we have to develop other near-term solutions as well. For transportation fuels these solutions should include coal gasification, ethanol from cellulose, thermal depolymerization and bio-diesel. We do not need to completely ignore conventional oil, there are still a number of domestic sources of this energy available. If we look at energy as a North American issue rather than a national issue, the Alberta Oil Sands could provide us with a great deal of conventional oil. With the CO2 produced from coal gasification conventional oil wells can be returned to production. There are also untapped sources of oil on Alaska's environmentally sensitive North Shore. Tapping these resources is economically feasible but is a politically sensitive and highly charged issue. With high fuel prices and our economy suffering from it, the politicians may find North Shore exploitation more acceptable with their constituents.
We should not count out gaseous fuels such as hydrogen, propane, and natural gas as transportation fuels but I see them as being either niche players or, further out in development. For the foreseeable future, I think most transportation fuels will be liquid because they are easier and safer to handle, transport, and use.
Energy is not just about transportation, we also use energy to heat and cool our homes, to manufacture things, and to save labor in many different ways. Stationary powerplants can use different kinds of fuels - everything from biomass (Including garbage) to nuclear power!
Because of issues with safety and waste disposal, nuclear power plants have not been built in the United States in several decades. These dynamics may be changing. Nuclear reactors are very efficient, it is estimated that one pound of enriched uranium produces the same amount of electrical energy as 800,000 tons of coal. Pebble bed nuclear reactors have been proven safe and effective. In the United States, the Yucca Mountain Repository is expected to start accepting radioactive waste for long term storage (disposal) in 2010. For all of these reasons, in the recent past some notable environmentalists have come out in favor of building a new generation of nuclear reactors.
Energy is an important part of modern life. The way we make it and the way we use it has to evolve and adapt. If it doesn't we will make it too valuable a commodity and we will be unable to afford it. Failure to change and adapt will without a doubt cause of a great deal of pain and suffering. We are reaching a point where we can no longer just talk about it. We need to take action that will help us now and we have to find ways to go forward using different fuels, methods, and processes. If we don't, we will wither away.
Run over their dog on the way out of the driveway.
I already know some of you will just think I'm an old fart fondly remembering a simpler time and confuse it for a better time but that really isn't what I'm trying to do here.
I liked the styling risks that some companies took back then. I get the sense that it was easier to take risks with consumer products back then.
My favorite car radio of all times was the Sanyo Tachard radio. It was shaped like a tachometer and locked with a key so that you could remove it. There were a couple of different models, I think one was 8 watts and the other was 32 watts. For the day, the sound quality was excellent and it made the inside of my Fiat 850 Spyder look almost space age.
RCA made a bedroom stereo that looked like an astronaut's helmet! When you lifted the face shield, the eyes were the controls, the nose the frequency dial, and the mouth was the eight-track deck.
Initial technology was always interesting too:
The VIC-20 from Comodore was an exceptional started computer that didn't cost an arm and a leg. It ran a form of basic that was fun to learn and use. It really was a toy and could be used to play games.
The Sinclair ZX-80 was an ultimate cheap computer. In many ways it was terrible (especially the keyboard) but it represented a starting point for so many inventive people to perform exparaments and modifications that I have to say it did a lot for the hobby computer industry and probably launched more people into computer related careers than anything else ever has.
Sometimes what was right and what was commercially successful were in two different worlds.
The eight-track won out over the cassette at first, despite the fact that it was more complex and lower quality. It litterally took a decade for people to wake up!
Sony Betamax was hands down better than VHS. It was visibly superior and actually less complex.
Communications technology was always a big deal.
My grandfather was a big baseball fan. For Christmas one year he was given a transistor AM radio with one of those really lousy ear-pieces. From April through October it was almost welded to his ear. It was that big a part of his life, I would even call it a life-changing thing for him. He no longer had to miss the game no matter where he went.
My friend was the first on the block to get color TV. I was so jealous! One night we watched a cop show on his TV and the flashing lights were blue - which made no sense to me because where I was from all cop cars, fire trucks, and ambulances had red lights. It really confused me.
My hometown was fairly small and dial phone technology came late. I was able to pick up the phone and tell Sarah, the operator that I wanted to talk to my mom and she would actually track her down or if she couldn't she would offer to call one of my grandparents for me! This is one place where technology may actually have been a hinderance for small towns. Today, the operator is likely in a different time-zone and has no knowlege of your town.
My dad was a volinteer fireman and we had a "fire phone" in our home for years. If the phone rang steady, you picked up the phone and listened and you would hear the actual person reporting the fire or, in the event of a "second alarm" or "mutual aid" call a dispatcher. Us kids were taught to always listen if dad was home or to try to ignore the call if he wasn't (we always listened). Most of the cafes and bars in town were also wired into the fire phone system so that they could pass the word to their fire-fighting customers. I think today's system is far superior to the old solution but not nearly as much fun.
My '64 Buick had a speed buzzer and auto-dimming headlights. Features I loved. I would almost rather have the buzzer than cruise control today. I really wish my truck had auto-dimming headlights. I am really glad that it corners better and stops faster than my '64 Buick did though. Believe it or not, my 2000 Dodge 5.2L RAM gets about the same MPG as my '64 Buick did and, the '64 Buick had a 401 CID "Wildcat 445" engine and a 4bbl carb!
When traveling for work, I frequently found myself packing two laptops, a printer, a switch or two and about a half a mile of cables, a couple of cel phones, digital cameras, disks, papers, tools and you name it. At the time, I would be hitting the road for a few days every week. Everything was as compact and as light as I could make it but it all still added up.
One day I was in the grocery store and stumbled across the solution. This particular store had an area where they sold odd-ball stuff that you don't usually find in grocery stores - they offered these things at really low prices and I picked up a three piece American Tourister soft-sided luggage set (in a maroon color) for next to nothing. They "nested" one inside of the other and had wheels. I used the biggest one to tote everything. I used pieces of foam backed carpet glued onto luan plywood as separator pieces and stuck a piece of this into the pocket in the inside lid of the case and a piece in the back, between the frame thing for the handle. What I ended up with was a "semi-soft-sided" piece of luggage that was better able to protect the equipment. It held everything I needed to carry and even allowed me to use the outside pockets to store things in.
I've never had any damage, I check it when I get on the airplane and when it comes off of the baggage thing at the airport, I can tell immediately that it is mine, there are so few maroon bags that I can find mine right away.
Also, these bags can snap together one piggybacking on the other so that I only have one thing to drag through the airport. This is a feature that I love because when you try to drag two side by side you look like a one person Laurel and Hardy show.
It almost seems as the Apple/Microsoft story may be based on the fable "The Tortoise and the Hare." For years, Microsoft ran away with everything while Apple just seemed to sort of plod along, managing to dodge the bankruptcy bullet on more than one occasion. Their hardware was mostly ignored but those who took the time to look were impressed with the quality and performance of it. All in all, the faithful said the Apple was a well run company that produced quality goods but suffered from bouts of lackluster results. Despite it all, Apple kept at it, working hard, developing products and doing their level best. Along the way, IBM and Microsoft sort of lost steam, IBM sold itself out of the consumer market while Microsoft missed goals and suffered delay after delay, pushing their most promising new product releases into the future causing some people to claim that their latest products are just a step above vaporware.
Apple in the meantime has done a wonderful job of making and selling a couple of notable products and services. Their war-chest is stuffed with a pile of money and they are now bringing a real product to market that is designed to compete with the PC industry (including the Microsoft juggernaut) head to head. From all appearances, it looks like Apple Inc. is primed to steal market share from the big boys in the PC industry (Lenovo, Dell, Microsoft, and so on). What they are offering is good hardware, stellar marketing, and impressive timing. Everyone who loves their iPod is a potential customer! Especially if the Apple hardware in someway improves the perceived value of their other Apple stuff (or makes it easier to use). The executives at Apple are quite shrewd and astute businessmen, they know what they are doing and they have a plan.
I'm not counting Microsoft out, they will continue to command the lion's share of the market, but Apple has become a foe that they don't quite know how to deal with. It is as if the little ankle biting dog suddenly got bigger and more aggressive when nobody was looking! Still, Apple is not putting down a full court press frontal attack on Microsoft, they are in a sense, sharing - perhaps that is what "Boot Camp" is all about (I don't know, and I'm not even exactly speculating, I am floating a question). Are the Apple execs positioning their company as a non-enemy so that if Microsoft were to suddenly flex their muscle, they would look like the innocent ninety-eight pound weakling being bullied by the big kid? That could be good for marketing!