Ever heard of Troy Duffy, the guy behing The Boondock Saints? He was one of those rare cases where he came out of nowhere and got a movie deal. Too bad he turned out to be a complete idiot and ruined his chances. Sad story, really, because the guy does have creative talent. There's a documentary about it all called Overnight.
Excellent case in point. Contrast with JJ Abrams, who writes and produces a few thoroughly lackluster movies, disappears for a few years, then comes back and does two more movies even worse than the previouc ones, then is given a green light on a pretty weakly-plotted but decently written (in the technical sense only) TV show ("Felicity"), and follows it up with an incredibly weak but very flashy TV show ("Alias"), and then comes up with a weaker still but even flashier TV show ("Lost"). I suspect the fact that his father, Gerald Abrams, has been an active producer since the 70's had some effect on him continuing to get work. His ideas are the schlockiest of schlock, the worst kind of typical tripe the gets repeatedly pushed in our faces, and the only reason they haven't gone down in flames is because he was essentially given ten years worth of second chances and benefits of the doubt ("hey, why not? He's a good kid! I've known his father for years.") in which to develop the technical skills of writing and directing. So now we're stuck with a shallow dullard making skillfully-filmed shows full of well-crafted but insipid two-dimensional dialogue propping up scattershot, incoherent, painfully contrived plots.
An unknown like Troy Duffy, in the same position, would have been written off after "Armageddon", "Gone Fishin'", or "Forever Young".
I'd argue that the WiFi said "Well, I'm not going to stop you".
On what basis? A DHCP request is a request. Unless the router offers the configuration information and assigns the requesting user an IP address, there'll be connection. This is more than the router failing to get in the way, this is the router aiding and abetting. No matter how much you wish it to be true that the router is a passive bystander in the situation, it is simply not the case. Wireless routers come from the factory set to assist anyone and everyone trying to connect.
I'm sure Hollywood is calling right now. I wonder if this is where the studios recruit some of their screenwriters.
Nah, if any of these entries were expanded upon they'd probably turn into something novel and interesting. Most screenwriters get "discovered" by their uncle Charlie the Hollywood producer, and then only if they don't stray too far from a proven formula from the past. I've lived and worked in and around the periphery of the business for some twenty years and have met scores or TV and movie writers, and nearly all of them are talentless hacks who got their foot in the door via a friend or relative with connections. There are obvious exceptions, but one need only turn on the TV to see this is true.
Not a problem. We presently work up to a full day off base every 4 years.
What problems do you expect from being up to an hour off base if everyone is off the same amount?
The two aren't the same thing. The "leap year" thing is to adjust for the earth's orbit around the sun. Leap seconds adjust for the earth's rotation. Waiting until we are an hour off to realign with the earth's actual rotation would be like waiting till we were a full month off to adjust for the solar orbit.
"From 1884 to 1961, the world set its official clocks to Greenwich Mean Time, based on the actual rise and set of the stars as seen from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, just outside London."
I had no idea there was still a physical basis for this. I assumed there was a master atomic clock.
I'm fairly certain there was no atomic clock in 1884. hances are, the atomic clocks arrived on the scene around, oh, 1961 maybe?
American football, obviously, as it's the only one of the two that has a standard size for a regulation field, which allows you to say "the size of a football field" and have it mean something. I mean, come ON! A regulation FIFA field can be anywhere from 50 to 100 yards wide by 100 to 130 yards long. Asking "how many footy fields big is it" is like asking how many angels can dance on the head of pin. Not a good SOLID measurement, like american football fields, libraries of congress, or statues-of-liberty-on-its-side. And besides, it's technically a "pitch", not a "field".
Maybe it is time you grew up and realized that there is much better things to do than look at naked pictures of chicks, like looking at the real thing perhaps (i.e. wife/girlfriend)?
The most accurate analogy I've found is watering your lawn with a hose attached to the neighbor's faucet. It doesn't preclude them from using water at the same time, but it does reduce their available pressure and will cost them more...
An even better analogy is installing a drinking fountain at the edge of your lawn, facing the sidewalk. What do you suppose the police officer would say if you called the police station to report that passers-by were stopping at the drinking fountain and "stealing" your water?
Re:Why pay, when "linksys" and "default" are free?
on
The Case for Free WiFi?
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
But please, for the love of God, don't be pulling shit from IRC or saturating the connection with Bittorrents. If you need that kind of bandwidth, do it at home on your OWN connection.
Sheesh. What sort of dork downloads things on their laptop directly? Real dorks use the web interfaces for eMule or ABC to tell their computer(s) at home on the real internet connection to do the downloading. Who wants to sit around a coffee shop waiting for a download to finish before they can leave?
What were they thinking? There hasn't been a reason to buy Intel for higher-end machines for a long time now. Why the hell is AMD only at 10% of sales?!
Boss: "why is the server so slow?"
IT Flunky: "The servers are five years old"
Boss: "So call up Dell, our corporate computer vendor, and order some new ones. This is driving me crazy."
IT Flunky: "OK"
Probably no more complicated an explaination than that, for the most part.
AMD doesn't need fab capacity. They don't own their fabs. If they need more capacity, they'll just rent it out. It's what they do.
AMD has many fabs. You must be thinking of VIA/Cyrix who, as I recall, contract National Semiconductor fabs to produce their x86 compatible CPUs because they don't have a cross licensing agreement with Intel. Much to Intel's displeasure, their cross licensing with National allows National to produce x86 CPUs under contract for third parties.
It doesn't matter! His figures (estimates) are still roughly correct.
What figures? The guy I replied to said:
Your calculation is flawed. You assume compressing 30 channels real-time 24/7 is possible without melting the living room.
If someone want to dispute the bandwidth and storage necessary, that's a different issue-- reply to the original poster in that case. I'm just letting the one wiseguy who said the above know that those 30 channels come pre-compressed, so his argument of "not enough resources to compress 30 channels in real time" is moot.
The effect on the eye is the one most pronounced / easily detectable. But the rest of our body has got pretty much the same molecules, and those will (probably) respond in pretty much the same way.
No, they won't. The eyes are sensitive for very specific reasons that have to do with their optical properties and their lack of protection.
The only difference is that you do not "see" the change that quick. You might be experiencing, over time, effects comparable to a minor stroke : parts of the brain that do not anymore function the way they used to do.
The low power coming off an antenna is not powerful enough to cause heating effect more than a few millimeters deep. If the microwaves were powerful enough to cause brain damage of ANY sort from microwave heating, they'd be blistering your skin. Nothing except the eye meets the conditions a 1) being sensitive to low levels of "cooking" and 2) being within 2-3mm of the surface. This in particular has been studied to death for decades, ever since the invention of radar. The eyes are peculiar in their elevated sensitivity to microwave heating.
Where are these border crossings that have people driving into the United States from Canada or Mexico leaving or entering North America? I would have hoped that the department charged with defending the nation would aware of geography at least enough to realize that its only two neighbors connected by land are on the same continent.
Talk to Beth Duff-Brown, who wrote the article for the AP, not DHS. All the quotes she uses talk about "border security" and "entries and exits along the border". She's the one who, in the article's first paragraph, says "track foreigners driving in and out of North America."
Consider when the commercial airline industry was younger and after a number of aircraft crashed, they discovered metal fatigue. If slashdot had been around then I'm sure half of the slashdotters would have spewed the usual "what are we supposed to do, get rid of aircraft technology" crap. But fortunately nobody in the real world did that - instead, they simply figured out a way to build aircraft from better materials, and made safer aircraft. Thanks to the studies that helped us understand the metal fatigue problems, we now have all the same benefits of commercial airline technology, with far fewer risks than it used to have.
Not a very good analogy. Metal fatigue was a well-known in the early jet age and didn't require "discovery"; also, it's not something that has been solved. You're probably thinking of the the de Havilland Comet crash in 1954, where fatigue cracking at the corners of the square windows resulted in catastrophic decompression. The Comet windows were squared essentially for cosmetic reasons-- no other aircraft manufacturer was dumb enough to stray from the tried-and-true round design. The problem was solved by letting engineering take precedence over appearance. As far as metal fatigue goes, there's not way around it. It's still a major cause of plane crashes and thousands of man hours are spent inspecting aircraft structural members to catch the signs of fatigue early.
The energy of an 802.11b device is the same kind of energy that cooks your food, but on a much smaller scale. This is important considering that we as humans are 98% made of water.
FWIW, it's fairly irrelevant that the human body is 98% water. Microwaves only heat water-- they don't transform it into Horrible Eye Poison or anything. Most of the human body can handle a little microwave heating. It's really only the eyes that can't handle it, essentially cooking like the whites of an egg.
This reminds me of a story on how Micron got started.
J.R. Simplot (Idaho potatoes magnate) who was one of the initial investors in Micron thought that he is investing in building a plant that makes potato chips.
Yeah, that's such a hilarious joke. Every exasperatingly possible permutation of it was used for years by would-be humorists in the trade rags. Further proof that business journal writers should stick to business and stay away from comedy.
In reality, JR Simplot invested in Micron at the urging of his youngest son Scott who, as Director of Planning and Information Technology for Simplot (the corporation), knew full well the difference between microchips and potato chips.
Only 3 companies sold more computers than Apple last quarter. Dell, HP, and either Gateway or Lenova (IBM). Apple came in 4th in sales. Not bad for a stupid computer company.
Sorry, that's just not really very impressive. Dell, HP, and Gateway (the top 3) account for a hair under 60% of the sales last quarter, Dell alone taking almost 35%. Everyone else is essentially fighting over the scraps with less than 5% each. Sales rank alone is not a particularly informative metric.
Your calculation is flawed. You assume compressing 30 channels real-time 24/7 is possible without melting the living room.
You assume they're recording analog broadcasts, which they aren't. Recording UK terrestrial digital broadcasts requires no compression. It's already compressed. They're directly recording the Freeview multiplexes.
bani: Er, what exact law makes cantennas illegal? I'd seriously like to know.
bob_lozito: Bad quote.
bani: is there an accurate transcript or recording available?
bob_lozito: Not sure. Either way, it is not illegal and if I inferred it, I was
wrong.
Hah! First he says "Bad quote", but immediately allows for the possibility that he implied it upon request for a transcript.
He admitted he was wrong, maybe we can cut him some slack?
Man, he ain't admitted squat! He's giving us the classic liar's line: "I didn't do it, and if it's shown that I did, I'm sorry." He a typical political appointee with more experience in PR than the technology he's ostensibly policing. I say rather than giving him slack, we keep pulling on the rope.
before you spam him into oblivion perhaps give it a second thought:
"have received several similar emails," says Lozito. "My comment was not accurately quoted," he states.
Of course, the fact that all he can come up with are "clarifications" like this:
What I was referring to was the use of the devices to locate an open
port or signal and then once found, accessing the system to conduct
unlawful activity.
The possession of the device itself is not illegal however I believe
that in time, the law may look at such devices much as it does for
burglary tools for someone that has been convicted of burglary or
related crimes.
If my comment caused some confusion, I apologize.
...leads one to suspect that he was, in fact, quoted literally and accurately and is now trying to backpedal and extract his foot from his mouth. If he really and truly was misquoted, he wouldn't be apologizing for causing confusion, he'd be indignantly blasting the reporter for putting words in his mouth. It seems pretty obvious that he did not understand the way the FCC regs work and genuinely thought that such antennas were illegal. Is it really any surprise that a guy who ends up in a fairly political leadership position in the Sacramento Sheriff's Department isn't a technological whiz?
Anybody know if possession of a slim jim is illegal anywhere in the US?
As far as I know (as a locksmith) a "slim jim" is technically legal everywhere-- our tool supplier doesn't ask for any particular certification to buy car opening tools, and offers no caveats about sending such tools to specific states at least. They are, however, generally seen as a "burglary tool" if found in the posession of anyone who can't come up with a good, solid reason for having it. Unlike a screwdriver or crowbar, a slim jim is essentially only useful for bypassing locks. If you can't convince the cops that you have legitimate need to bypass locks in your daily life, you're probably in trouble. Anyway, it's kind of a moot point nowadays. Most cars less than 20 years old you can't open with a standard slim jim, as they've covered the linkages, made them horizontal, and/or have moved the lock toggle up next to the interior handle. The tool we mostly use now is either a long reach-in or an under-over tool to reach the power lock switch.
It has been sugested to me by some of my coworkers not to go in front of it if I want to keep from going blind as the eyetissue is fairly sensitive to RF radiation.
I'd like to offer a minor correction on the above: eyes are specifically sensitive to microwave heating, rather than the much larger category of "RF radiation". Blindness in the form of cataracts can happen at much lower powers than would be necessary to cause general bodily injury from burns. Like cooking an egg, the clear parts of the eye turn opaque.
Slashdot Mirror
Excellent case in point. Contrast with JJ Abrams, who writes and produces a few thoroughly lackluster movies, disappears for a few years, then comes back and does two more movies even worse than the previouc ones, then is given a green light on a pretty weakly-plotted but decently written (in the technical sense only) TV show ("Felicity"), and follows it up with an incredibly weak but very flashy TV show ("Alias"), and then comes up with a weaker still but even flashier TV show ("Lost"). I suspect the fact that his father, Gerald Abrams, has been an active producer since the 70's had some effect on him continuing to get work. His ideas are the schlockiest of schlock, the worst kind of typical tripe the gets repeatedly pushed in our faces, and the only reason they haven't gone down in flames is because he was essentially given ten years worth of second chances and benefits of the doubt ("hey, why not? He's a good kid! I've known his father for years.") in which to develop the technical skills of writing and directing. So now we're stuck with a shallow dullard making skillfully-filmed shows full of well-crafted but insipid two-dimensional dialogue propping up scattershot, incoherent, painfully contrived plots.
An unknown like Troy Duffy, in the same position, would have been written off after "Armageddon", "Gone Fishin'", or "Forever Young".
On what basis? A DHCP request is a request. Unless the router offers the configuration information and assigns the requesting user an IP address, there'll be connection. This is more than the router failing to get in the way, this is the router aiding and abetting. No matter how much you wish it to be true that the router is a passive bystander in the situation, it is simply not the case. Wireless routers come from the factory set to assist anyone and everyone trying to connect.
Nah, if any of these entries were expanded upon they'd probably turn into something novel and interesting. Most screenwriters get "discovered" by their uncle Charlie the Hollywood producer, and then only if they don't stray too far from a proven formula from the past. I've lived and worked in and around the periphery of the business for some twenty years and have met scores or TV and movie writers, and nearly all of them are talentless hacks who got their foot in the door via a friend or relative with connections. There are obvious exceptions, but one need only turn on the TV to see this is true.
The two aren't the same thing. The "leap year" thing is to adjust for the earth's orbit around the sun. Leap seconds adjust for the earth's rotation. Waiting until we are an hour off to realign with the earth's actual rotation would be like waiting till we were a full month off to adjust for the solar orbit.
I had no idea there was still a physical basis for this. I assumed there was a master atomic clock.
I'm fairly certain there was no atomic clock in 1884. hances are, the atomic clocks arrived on the scene around, oh, 1961 maybe?
American football, obviously, as it's the only one of the two that has a standard size for a regulation field, which allows you to say "the size of a football field" and have it mean something. I mean, come ON! A regulation FIFA field can be anywhere from 50 to 100 yards wide by 100 to 130 yards long. Asking "how many footy fields big is it" is like asking how many angels can dance on the head of pin. Not a good SOLID measurement, like american football fields, libraries of congress, or statues-of-liberty-on-its-side. And besides, it's technically a "pitch", not a "field".
Man, who let this guy in here? He's a nut!
An even better analogy is installing a drinking fountain at the edge of your lawn, facing the sidewalk. What do you suppose the police officer would say if you called the police station to report that passers-by were stopping at the drinking fountain and "stealing" your water?
Sheesh. What sort of dork downloads things on their laptop directly? Real dorks use the web interfaces for eMule or ABC to tell their computer(s) at home on the real internet connection to do the downloading. Who wants to sit around a coffee shop waiting for a download to finish before they can leave?
Boss: "why is the server so slow?"
IT Flunky: "The servers are five years old"
Boss: "So call up Dell, our corporate computer vendor, and order some new ones. This is driving me crazy."
IT Flunky: "OK"
Probably no more complicated an explaination than that, for the most part.
AMD has many fabs. You must be thinking of VIA/Cyrix who, as I recall, contract National Semiconductor fabs to produce their x86 compatible CPUs because they don't have a cross licensing agreement with Intel. Much to Intel's displeasure, their cross licensing with National allows National to produce x86 CPUs under contract for third parties.
What figures? The guy I replied to said:
If someone want to dispute the bandwidth and storage necessary, that's a different issue-- reply to the original poster in that case. I'm just letting the one wiseguy who said the above know that those 30 channels come pre-compressed, so his argument of "not enough resources to compress 30 channels in real time" is moot.
No, they won't. The eyes are sensitive for very specific reasons that have to do with their optical properties and their lack of protection.
The only difference is that you do not "see" the change that quick. You might be experiencing, over time, effects comparable to a minor stroke : parts of the brain that do not anymore function the way they used to do.
The low power coming off an antenna is not powerful enough to cause heating effect more than a few millimeters deep. If the microwaves were powerful enough to cause brain damage of ANY sort from microwave heating, they'd be blistering your skin. Nothing except the eye meets the conditions a 1) being sensitive to low levels of "cooking" and 2) being within 2-3mm of the surface. This in particular has been studied to death for decades, ever since the invention of radar. The eyes are peculiar in their elevated sensitivity to microwave heating.
Talk to Beth Duff-Brown, who wrote the article for the AP, not DHS. All the quotes she uses talk about "border security" and "entries and exits along the border". She's the one who, in the article's first paragraph, says "track foreigners driving in and out of North America."
Not a very good analogy. Metal fatigue was a well-known in the early jet age and didn't require "discovery"; also, it's not something that has been solved. You're probably thinking of the the de Havilland Comet crash in 1954, where fatigue cracking at the corners of the square windows resulted in catastrophic decompression. The Comet windows were squared essentially for cosmetic reasons-- no other aircraft manufacturer was dumb enough to stray from the tried-and-true round design. The problem was solved by letting engineering take precedence over appearance. As far as metal fatigue goes, there's not way around it. It's still a major cause of plane crashes and thousands of man hours are spent inspecting aircraft structural members to catch the signs of fatigue early.
FWIW, it's fairly irrelevant that the human body is 98% water. Microwaves only heat water-- they don't transform it into Horrible Eye Poison or anything. Most of the human body can handle a little microwave heating. It's really only the eyes that can't handle it, essentially cooking like the whites of an egg.
Yeah, that's such a hilarious joke. Every exasperatingly possible permutation of it was used for years by would-be humorists in the trade rags. Further proof that business journal writers should stick to business and stay away from comedy.
In reality, JR Simplot invested in Micron at the urging of his youngest son Scott who, as Director of Planning and Information Technology for Simplot (the corporation), knew full well the difference between microchips and potato chips.
Sorry, that's just not really very impressive. Dell, HP, and Gateway (the top 3) account for a hair under 60% of the sales last quarter, Dell alone taking almost 35%. Everyone else is essentially fighting over the scraps with less than 5% each. Sales rank alone is not a particularly informative metric.
Look, you can't just take it for granite that everyone can spell.
You assume they're recording analog broadcasts, which they aren't. Recording UK terrestrial digital broadcasts requires no compression. It's already compressed. They're directly recording the Freeview multiplexes.
That's why I said most cars, and not all cars.
bob_lozito: Bad quote.
bani: is there an accurate transcript or recording available?
bob_lozito: Not sure. Either way, it is not illegal and if I inferred it, I was wrong.
Hah! First he says "Bad quote", but immediately allows for the possibility that he implied it upon request for a transcript.
He admitted he was wrong, maybe we can cut him some slack?
Man, he ain't admitted squat! He's giving us the classic liar's line: "I didn't do it, and if it's shown that I did, I'm sorry." He a typical political appointee with more experience in PR than the technology he's ostensibly policing. I say rather than giving him slack, we keep pulling on the rope.
"have received several similar emails," says Lozito. "My comment was not accurately quoted," he states.
Of course, the fact that all he can come up with are "clarifications" like this:
As far as I know (as a locksmith) a "slim jim" is technically legal everywhere-- our tool supplier doesn't ask for any particular certification to buy car opening tools, and offers no caveats about sending such tools to specific states at least. They are, however, generally seen as a "burglary tool" if found in the posession of anyone who can't come up with a good, solid reason for having it. Unlike a screwdriver or crowbar, a slim jim is essentially only useful for bypassing locks. If you can't convince the cops that you have legitimate need to bypass locks in your daily life, you're probably in trouble. Anyway, it's kind of a moot point nowadays. Most cars less than 20 years old you can't open with a standard slim jim, as they've covered the linkages, made them horizontal, and/or have moved the lock toggle up next to the interior handle. The tool we mostly use now is either a long reach-in or an under-over tool to reach the power lock switch.
I'd like to offer a minor correction on the above: eyes are specifically sensitive to microwave heating, rather than the much larger category of "RF radiation". Blindness in the form of cataracts can happen at much lower powers than would be necessary to cause general bodily injury from burns. Like cooking an egg, the clear parts of the eye turn opaque.