After calling Microsoft technical support many times today, it is obvious they had no clue how many legitimate users No-IP has. They were completely unprepared for the calls to restore service and they were given no information about No-IP. Many times I was referred to their legal and corporate affairs office (425-706-7863). They don't know anything either. Eventually I was transfered to some Azure department where I was told they would offer to sell me a replacement service.
Wow! You would think that if this was a real problem it would have been reported, and killed the network, sometime since it was first deployed in 2006. How is it they've managed to operate all this time without being hindered by the problem you mention?
The same happens here. Our officers do most everything on MDT so radio communication is very light. They really do use cell phones for anything sensitive. They also have played with Skype calls on MDT's (but that's usually to talk about wives and girlfriends). Cop to cop meetings along dark sections of road are still the best way to communicate so even the boss doesn't hear.
These idiot "watchdogs" who think they're keeping an eye on local government by listening to their scanner have no clue. They are missing maybe 80% of what's going on. Our cops play with them on a routine basis. The cops know who's listening, they appreciate their audience. So when they do use the radio, they made that choice from several communication options. The end result is that these "watchdogs" are totally suckered in. They should be suspicious of what they do hear, not what they don't.
But a dish made for a 47 MHz wide chunk of the 2 GHz spectrum Dish is allocated would be.....the same size as the one they currently use.
The fact that Clearwire has 133 MHz of bandwidth does not mean that their bandwidth is centered on 133 MHz. It means that they have a 133 MHz wide allocation centered somewhere in the 2 GHz region. Your airplanes are safe from them.
It reminds me of when Joe gets out of prison and finds that all music is illegal. He's left to imagine guitar solos in his head...but even imagining music is illegal.
This "Guild" will have us doing something like that one day. Perhaps there will be rights that must be purchased to even imagine the story in your mind. Reading is one thing but to imagine....well, that costs extra.
With what money? Even if you can get credit in today's economy, is that such a wise thing to do?
Although you might get a few more MPG from a new vehicle, why scrap a perfectly good vehicle that you own? In the end you simply alter your life so you require more money to pay for your financing. That requirement is met by you having to work more. And that requirement is often met by you needing to travel more thereby consuming more fuel and doing more damage to the environment.
So if someone has a 13 year old car, like mine, which is more fuel efficient than most new cars on the market, Singapore punishes the owner for this?
Your government seems to be encouraging the disposal of cars as quick as possible. This can't possibly be efficient from an economic or environmental point of view. Worse yet, it encourages the production of cars that are "disposable" rather than something safe, sturdy and as a good long term investment.
I see your Singapore model as the perfect example of what is wrong with the automotive industry, government regulation of that automotive industry and transportation.
I am in the US and own, for all intents and purposes, a European car. My 1996 Ford Contour differs little from the Mondeo they sold at the time in Europe. So the manufacturers could, and did sell the same car in multiple locations. VW did this with the beetle for ages.
It's a good thing for me too. Because my "ancient" car gets 33+MPG on the highway, is well maintained and in good shape, I wouldn't consider trading it in. Most new cars I've looked aren't nearly as efficient. Even as my maintenance costs rise with the age of the vehicle, I'm still paying less than I would for a new car, even with some freshly printed government credit.
Ford did a great job with that car. If/when I have finally run this car to the end of it's life, I'll be looking for another car that was designed to be sold worldwide. I'll avoid cars that are created to squeak by a single governments restrictions.
Rather than changing the "styling" of their models every year, manufacturers should get lean and efficient. Changes should only be made to advance the state of the art, to improve safety and efficiency. Manufacturers would then cut their costs. Consumers would have to pay less, if they can learn to quit buying based on style. I believe there are environmental benefits to this as well.
That said, Ford should bring back the Mondeo/Contour. VW should make a few improvements to that little air cooled four banger and bring back the beetle.
However, do consider that the investment we make in our children today will have and effect in 20 years. That effect can be exactly as I describe, the need to hire foreign engineers. Also consider that we need to end this Homeland Security nightmare before we turn our country into the very thing we once despised.
No worries. It's just the stupid American kids who can't purchase chemistry sets thanks to the "protection" of "Homeland Security". They don't have any interest in them anyway, they're too busy playing Playstation, X Box and Wii.
Kids in "Terrorist Nations" will have no problem getting things like chemistry sets.
Of course this is a brilliant plan by the Bush administration whereby in 20 years we'll hire those kids as engineers, since we won't have any of our own. This builds friendship. We'll then use that friendship to convert these heathen to "christianity".
I have a friend who was going to purchase 8 of these things for xmas gifts. That news just cost Apple the sale as most in his family are Linux users.
Oh well, not that Apple cares. They're happy with their 3% (or whatever) market share and the profits they make and really don't give a wet slap about more profit from the Linux crowd.
Then again, be thankful you're not here in Mormon Idaho. The Utah mafia runs the government here and I would gladly trade them for "puritanical prigs".
I totally agree with this. The state of affairs in the world sucks at the moment. Back in my day things were much better. We knew who the enemy was, it was those commies in the USSR. And they were just as clear on who their enemy was. With that kind of clarity we all got on with our lives and things were simple.
If they want to portray the US as the enemy, I completely understand that. The best part of that is...we're not really their enemy. It's a safe ruse that could do a lot of good. I suggest we do the same and pretend Russia is an evil empire again.
Let's return to the concept of a cold war. Not as many people died in the last one. We didn't shoot each other as much either.
As for the requirement for 50% of the news to be happy: why the hell not? I realize that might require reporters and editors to actually do some work, but the stories are out there.
That's exactly where the problems come in, you've got a great understanding of the issue. For us they want to build a statewide 700 MHz trunked system and then bridge in all the existing VHF and UHF systems. That's all peachy....until you're out of range of the repeaters or a repeater fails. Then the 700 doesn't talk to the UHF or the VHF.
But the administrators will spend, spend, spend until they get these bridges and then they'll work just fine. There will be ceremony, pomp and parties thrown by the vendors. Business as usual. Business for admin that is. The guys in the field will continue to use runners like they have for 10,000 years.
I've been a professional communications technician for a lot of years. My experience has been extactly what they found in NYC: It isn't the technology that fails to communicate, it's the people.
We can throw billions of dollars at this problem and replace all of the technology if we want. That's what they're doing now. But you still can't get cops to agree to talk to firefighters or vice versa. Interoperability has nothing at all to do with technology.
Where I live everyone uses analog radios, the easiest type of systems to make interoperate. I already have very simple, high quality and inexpensive methods that would allow users to interoperate. They don't use interoperate, but it's not for any lack of method. Instead, because "interoperability" is the buzzword and federal cash flow requires the use of the latest buzzwords, Idaho is attempting to scrap all of its working systems and replace them with new tech. Not one discussion has ever taken place in which they addressed getting one agency to talk to another. Nobody is interested in that, they don't want it and it will never happen.
Interoperability isn't a technical problem, it's a people problem.
Bridging solutions like that tend to be dangerous. The first page of the story talks about Denver and how units can't talk to each other when they are outside the system coverage area. That happens more often than you think, especially in buildings or remote rural areas. Even worse is when you lose system coverage due to the very emergency you're responding to (forest fire or building collapse).
Having radios in the same frequency band that have a common mode of operation is extremely important.
I have a very hard time believing that someone so smart would ask such a silly question.
Of course we've survived quite a lot. Everything from the severity of creation, war, impacts from space, the dark ages, etc. We will survive the next 100 years and the next 1000 years the same way we survived all those years before. We will meet and struggle through all the challenges we encounter.
But the question that was asked sounds like someone in search of an easy way out. There is no quick fix or magic wand and never has been. Hawking knows this so I find it hard to believe that he would ask such a thing. He should be among those who best understand our ability to face challenge and overcome it. Sometimes we do that in a ham handed fashion but we do it nontheless.
When I joined the workforce it was with Uncle Sam: the federal government. That's the same outfit, for those of you who might be unaware, that runs NASA. The federal government is a large and interesting organization that has a rule book for everything and everything is done by the book. Or Else. As it was explained to me, the government doesn't like having to explain replacement of expensive things because of stupid mistakes. They make enough stupid mistakes as it is. They also find it difficult to deal with angry families or foreign nations when these accidents impact those entities.
My early work experience was very similar to the business of space travel. I worked on high performance fighter aircraft. You had to focus very hard on safety and doing your job right because the danger level was already higher than most people see in their lives. On top of that, I was an armament systems specialist which means that I worked with things intended to blow up or otherwise kill people. Usually these devices were intended to kill large quantities of people or destroy very large and heavily armored vehicles or buildings. Safety was therefore extremely important because you didn't want one of these things going boom at the wrong time or place. Our goal was in fact to have the pilots fly around with these things and bring them back to us in one piece not having killed or destroyed anything. If/when we pulled that off it was A Good Thing(TM) . We were told, and I have witnessed, that if we took the time to do our jobs safely we would be doing them faster and at less cost than if we threw caution to the wind. Yes, I said that I have witnessed it.
Safety was preached to us all day, every day. We began each day with a mission briefing, a prayer and a safety briefing. On the flightline we started every load with a safety briefing. At the end of the day we debriefed so that we might learn from the experience and be more safe tomorrow. If, at any step of the operation, anyone thought conditions were unsafe, they would speak up and everything stopped until the situation was corrected. It didn't matter if the person crying safety was a general or the newest airman fresh out of tech school and wet behind the ears. The fact that I ended my enlistment with all of my limbs is a testament to this culture of safety. When you consider the dangers involved....it's pretty darn mindblowing.
If you compare tactical fighter operation with shuttle operation, the danger levels are very similar. Why then do we have NASA willing to launch a shuttle despite their top people saying it is unsafe to do so? When the engineers are saying "STOP", why is the mission allowed to proceed?
This is not the first time that NASA has had a disregard for safety. In fact it's something of a way of life for them. Remember the Apollo 1 disaster and the hatch that couldn't be opened by the astronauts? And that's not the first such stupid unsafe act they were involved in. NASA and the CIA have always had this acceptable risk culture as part of their flight operations.
The military has a culture of safety and, although their jobs are extremely dangerous, they do not believe in acceptable risk. The military is always working to make their jobs safer. NASA, on the other hand, has a culture of acceptable risk. They seem to figure that their jobs are dangerous and that's just the way it is. I'm thinking NASA could learn quite a bit from DoD. Yes, I actually typed that.
If we're ever going to get off this rock, space travel has to become safe. If we're ever going to use space to our advantage it has to become affordable, and that means we can't be accepting high risk all the time. Therefore this culture of acceptable risk is holding back our space program.
The Russians don't have the safest space program around but they sure have a cheaper space program that is just as active. The Soviets, when they ran the show, had a hell of a lot of stupid accidents. Then again, they have never spent the kind of
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After calling Microsoft technical support many times today, it is obvious they had no clue how many legitimate users No-IP has. They were completely unprepared for the calls to restore service and they were given no information about No-IP. Many times I was referred to their legal and corporate affairs office (425-706-7863). They don't know anything either. Eventually I was transfered to some Azure department where I was told they would offer to sell me a replacement service.
Wow! You would think that if this was a real problem it would have been reported, and killed the network, sometime since it was first deployed in 2006. How is it they've managed to operate all this time without being hindered by the problem you mention?
In space no one can hear you gurgle.
The same happens here. Our officers do most everything on MDT so radio communication is very light. They really do use cell phones for anything sensitive. They also have played with Skype calls on MDT's (but that's usually to talk about wives and girlfriends). Cop to cop meetings along dark sections of road are still the best way to communicate so even the boss doesn't hear.
These idiot "watchdogs" who think they're keeping an eye on local government by listening to their scanner have no clue. They are missing maybe 80% of what's going on. Our cops play with them on a routine basis. The cops know who's listening, they appreciate their audience. So when they do use the radio, they made that choice from several communication options. The end result is that these "watchdogs" are totally suckered in. They should be suspicious of what they do hear, not what they don't.
But a dish made for a 47 MHz wide chunk of the 2 GHz spectrum Dish is allocated would be.....the same size as the one they currently use.
The fact that Clearwire has 133 MHz of bandwidth does not mean that their bandwidth is centered on 133 MHz. It means that they have a 133 MHz wide allocation centered somewhere in the 2 GHz region. Your airplanes are safe from them.
Don't you mean a syfy corridor?
"No, it was about economics, the same as most of the rest of the wars."
How could that possibly be? For the last eight years we've been told that all wars are fought over oil.
Tell your boss that you're interested in relieving him of this hassle. Offer to buy this portion of the business from him, work together on the terms.
The he won't have to worry about bandwidth issues and you can make a few extra bucks while offering quality service to your customers.
Frank Zappa would have had some fun with this.
It reminds me of when Joe gets out of prison and finds that all music is illegal. He's left to imagine guitar solos in his head...but even imagining music is illegal.
This "Guild" will have us doing something like that one day. Perhaps there will be rights that must be purchased to even imagine the story in your mind. Reading is one thing but to imagine....well, that costs extra.
"...go buy a japanese super-mini..."
With what money? Even if you can get credit in today's economy, is that such a wise thing to do?
Although you might get a few more MPG from a new vehicle, why scrap a perfectly good vehicle that you own? In the end you simply alter your life so you require more money to pay for your financing. That requirement is met by you having to work more. And that requirement is often met by you needing to travel more thereby consuming more fuel and doing more damage to the environment.
So if someone has a 13 year old car, like mine, which is more fuel efficient than most new cars on the market, Singapore punishes the owner for this?
Your government seems to be encouraging the disposal of cars as quick as possible. This can't possibly be efficient from an economic or environmental point of view. Worse yet, it encourages the production of cars that are "disposable" rather than something safe, sturdy and as a good long term investment.
I see your Singapore model as the perfect example of what is wrong with the automotive industry, government regulation of that automotive industry and transportation.
I am in the US and own, for all intents and purposes, a European car. My 1996 Ford Contour differs little from the Mondeo they sold at the time in Europe. So the manufacturers could, and did sell the same car in multiple locations. VW did this with the beetle for ages.
It's a good thing for me too. Because my "ancient" car gets 33+MPG on the highway, is well maintained and in good shape, I wouldn't consider trading it in. Most new cars I've looked aren't nearly as efficient. Even as my maintenance costs rise with the age of the vehicle, I'm still paying less than I would for a new car, even with some freshly printed government credit.
Ford did a great job with that car. If/when I have finally run this car to the end of it's life, I'll be looking for another car that was designed to be sold worldwide. I'll avoid cars that are created to squeak by a single governments restrictions.
Rather than changing the "styling" of their models every year, manufacturers should get lean and efficient. Changes should only be made to advance the state of the art, to improve safety and efficiency. Manufacturers would then cut their costs. Consumers would have to pay less, if they can learn to quit buying based on style. I believe there are environmental benefits to this as well.
That said, Ford should bring back the Mondeo/Contour. VW should make a few improvements to that little air cooled four banger and bring back the beetle.
"You might as well personally send an executive to drive a lawn dart through Johnny's skull."
Except that I think lawn darts are out of production for the same reason.
Relax. It wasn't ignorant hate, I was poking fun.
However, do consider that the investment we make in our children today will have and effect in 20 years. That effect can be exactly as I describe, the need to hire foreign engineers. Also consider that we need to end this Homeland Security nightmare before we turn our country into the very thing we once despised.
No worries. It's just the stupid American kids who can't purchase chemistry sets thanks to the "protection" of "Homeland Security". They don't have any interest in them anyway, they're too busy playing Playstation, X Box and Wii.
Kids in "Terrorist Nations" will have no problem getting things like chemistry sets.
Of course this is a brilliant plan by the Bush administration whereby in 20 years we'll hire those kids as engineers, since we won't have any of our own. This builds friendship. We'll then use that friendship to convert these heathen to "christianity".
I have a friend who was going to purchase 8 of these things for xmas gifts. That news just cost Apple the sale as most in his family are Linux users.
Oh well, not that Apple cares. They're happy with their 3% (or whatever) market share and the profits they make and really don't give a wet slap about more profit from the Linux crowd.
I had no idea it was that bad there.
Then again, be thankful you're not here in Mormon Idaho. The Utah mafia runs the government here and I would gladly trade them for "puritanical prigs".
.
That's only true of white males in North America. Other guys are plenty important.
Of course. But those made sense. They were against "the enemy" and you knew who that was.
Today we kill each other for oil or religion, we're not sure which. Today we take lives in schools without purpose.
I'm not saying that fewer people died in the cold war, just that it seemed to make more sense to die at the time.
I totally agree with this. The state of affairs in the world sucks at the moment. Back in my day things were much better. We knew who the enemy was, it was those commies in the USSR. And they were just as clear on who their enemy was. With that kind of clarity we all got on with our lives and things were simple.
If they want to portray the US as the enemy, I completely understand that. The best part of that is...we're not really their enemy. It's a safe ruse that could do a lot of good. I suggest we do the same and pretend Russia is an evil empire again.
Let's return to the concept of a cold war. Not as many people died in the last one. We didn't shoot each other as much either.
As for the requirement for 50% of the news to be happy: why the hell not? I realize that might require reporters and editors to actually do some work, but the stories are out there.
That's exactly where the problems come in, you've got a great understanding of the issue. For us they want to build a statewide 700 MHz trunked system and then bridge in all the existing VHF and UHF systems. That's all peachy....until you're out of range of the repeaters or a repeater fails. Then the 700 doesn't talk to the UHF or the VHF.
But the administrators will spend, spend, spend until they get these bridges and then they'll work just fine. There will be ceremony, pomp and parties thrown by the vendors. Business as usual. Business for admin that is. The guys in the field will continue to use runners like they have for 10,000 years.
I've been a professional communications technician for a lot of years. My experience has been extactly what they found in NYC: It isn't the technology that fails to communicate, it's the people.
We can throw billions of dollars at this problem and replace all of the technology if we want. That's what they're doing now. But you still can't get cops to agree to talk to firefighters or vice versa. Interoperability has nothing at all to do with technology.
Where I live everyone uses analog radios, the easiest type of systems to make interoperate. I already have very simple, high quality and inexpensive methods that would allow users to interoperate. They don't use interoperate, but it's not for any lack of method. Instead, because "interoperability" is the buzzword and federal cash flow requires the use of the latest buzzwords, Idaho is attempting to scrap all of its working systems and replace them with new tech. Not one discussion has ever taken place in which they addressed getting one agency to talk to another. Nobody is interested in that, they don't want it and it will never happen.
Interoperability isn't a technical problem, it's a people problem.
Bridging solutions like that tend to be dangerous. The first page of the story talks about Denver and how units can't talk to each other when they are outside the system coverage area. That happens more often than you think, especially in buildings or remote rural areas. Even worse is when you lose system coverage due to the very emergency you're responding to (forest fire or building collapse).
Having radios in the same frequency band that have a common mode of operation is extremely important.
I have a very hard time believing that someone so smart would ask such a silly question.
Of course we've survived quite a lot. Everything from the severity of creation, war, impacts from space, the dark ages, etc. We will survive the next 100 years and the next 1000 years the same way we survived all those years before. We will meet and struggle through all the challenges we encounter.
But the question that was asked sounds like someone in search of an easy way out. There is no quick fix or magic wand and never has been. Hawking knows this so I find it hard to believe that he would ask such a thing. He should be among those who best understand our ability to face challenge and overcome it. Sometimes we do that in a ham handed fashion but we do it nontheless.
When I joined the workforce it was with Uncle Sam: the federal government. That's the same outfit, for those of you who might be unaware, that runs NASA. The federal government is a large and interesting organization that has a rule book for everything and everything is done by the book. Or Else. As it was explained to me, the government doesn't like having to explain replacement of expensive things because of stupid mistakes. They make enough stupid mistakes as it is. They also find it difficult to deal with angry families or foreign nations when these accidents impact those entities.
My early work experience was very similar to the business of space travel. I worked on high performance fighter aircraft. You had to focus very hard on safety and doing your job right because the danger level was already higher than most people see in their lives. On top of that, I was an armament systems specialist which means that I worked with things intended to blow up or otherwise kill people. Usually these devices were intended to kill large quantities of people or destroy very large and heavily armored vehicles or buildings. Safety was therefore extremely important because you didn't want one of these things going boom at the wrong time or place. Our goal was in fact to have the pilots fly around with these things and bring them back to us in one piece not having killed or destroyed anything. If/when we pulled that off it was A Good Thing(TM) . We were told, and I have witnessed, that if we took the time to do our jobs safely we would be doing them faster and at less cost than if we threw caution to the wind. Yes, I said that I have witnessed it.
Safety was preached to us all day, every day. We began each day with a mission briefing, a prayer and a safety briefing. On the flightline we started every load with a safety briefing. At the end of the day we debriefed so that we might learn from the experience and be more safe tomorrow. If, at any step of the operation, anyone thought conditions were unsafe, they would speak up and everything stopped until the situation was corrected. It didn't matter if the person crying safety was a general or the newest airman fresh out of tech school and wet behind the ears. The fact that I ended my enlistment with all of my limbs is a testament to this culture of safety. When you consider the dangers involved....it's pretty darn mindblowing.
If you compare tactical fighter operation with shuttle operation, the danger levels are very similar. Why then do we have NASA willing to launch a shuttle despite their top people saying it is unsafe to do so? When the engineers are saying "STOP", why is the mission allowed to proceed?
This is not the first time that NASA has had a disregard for safety. In fact it's something of a way of life for them. Remember the Apollo 1 disaster and the hatch that couldn't be opened by the astronauts? And that's not the first such stupid unsafe act they were involved in. NASA and the CIA have always had this acceptable risk culture as part of their flight operations.
The military has a culture of safety and, although their jobs are extremely dangerous, they do not believe in acceptable risk. The military is always working to make their jobs safer. NASA, on the other hand, has a culture of acceptable risk. They seem to figure that their jobs are dangerous and that's just the way it is. I'm thinking NASA could learn quite a bit from DoD. Yes, I actually typed that.
If we're ever going to get off this rock, space travel has to become safe. If we're ever going to use space to our advantage it has to become affordable, and that means we can't be accepting high risk all the time. Therefore this culture of acceptable risk is holding back our space program.
The Russians don't have the safest space program around but they sure have a cheaper space program that is just as active. The Soviets, when they ran the show, had a hell of a lot of stupid accidents. Then again, they have never spent the kind of