nGage games run at a pretty low level, don't they? Just because Symbian has to load at boot doesn't mean we can't immediately kick it out of memory. Anyway, aren't there devices capable of flashing a phone's ROM? This would definitely allow bypassing Symbian.
It seems to me it would be Good Thing to be able to choose your phone hardware vendor seperately from what OS your phone would run. It would therefore be helpful to have a port of Linux running on Nokia phones, Sony phones, etc, so that users can choose to install Linux if they wish. The Linux kernel and gcc have already been ported to arm, which most of these phones use, so running Linux would seem to mostly be a matter of supporting I/O devices (GSM, screen, keypad, bluetooth, MMC, speaker, microphone, camera, etc). Are there any efforts currently to get Linux running on mobile phones that ship with Symbian or Windows by default? How proprietary is the hardware? Are there other open-source systems better-suited to this task?
If a Linux for Phones distro was available I'd install it on my Nokia 6600 in a second. Symbian is just too limiting.
Even if what you say is true, theres no reason why a proprietary solution makes more sense. If I'm putting the life in the hands of a computer, I damn well want to be able to know about every piece of code that computer is running.
But really, Linux isn't a consumer OS. Linux is a kernel frequently used in consumer OSes. This means its been tested by a _lot_ of people, and is that much more stable as a result. There is nothing particularly consumerish about the kernel itself (certainly not the 2.0 kernel), and aerospace companies can easily just configure without consumer-oriented features.
I fail to see why you think open source software is somehow less able to protect human life than proprietary software.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the original post, which was pointing out that the chips in these systems are very vulnerable to destruction by electromagnetic pulses.
There are plenty of semiconductor chips made in the US. These chips are just as susceptible to EMPs as any other chip.
So have the control operations well distributed. Theres no reason why you can't have 20% of your operators in Kuwait, 20% in Saudi Arabia, 20% back at the pentagon, 20% somewhere in Europe, etc.
Even keeping all the operators in one place isn't as risky as you claim. The same risks are theoretically present in human chain-of-command systems, in that the military would be pretty crippled if Washington DC were destroyed. In practice, however, it's not that hard to defend a control centre far away from the battle, as is evidenced by the continued existence of most countries' capitals, and so having the benefits of a centralized command centre far outweigh the risks.
If I recall correctly, the relevant scene of The Phantom Menace involved the protaganist accidentally happening to shoot the control ship's main reactor, or something along those lines. Such a vulnerability is hardly realistic or plausible in a world where we don't have a magical force guiding people to a system's weak points.
Re:These features are what sell the phones
on
KISS
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· Score: 1
Tanzania, actually. Cell phone voice communication is the ONLY available voice communication (landlines are virtually nonexistant), but it costs something like 60 US cents a minute. Text messages cost 6 US cents. There is no monthly fee, though, which is nice. I am told that things are similar in much of Europe, text messages are still a lot cheaper than voice calls. Frankly, I prefer text as a medium regardless of price. It allows you to think about what you say before you say it, avoids all the "ummm" and other uncomfortable pauses, avoids getting caught up in a (potentially expensive) irrelevant conversation, and you can get your message accross much more accurately and concisely. The fact that you are browsing a text-based forum like slashdot tends to indicate that, at least in some circumstances, you agree with me.
Re:These features are what sell the phones
on
KISS
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· Score: 1
I almost _never_ use my mobile phone for voice communication. It's just too damned expensive. I use my phone for sending and receiving text messages when I am away from my computer. Voice communication is annoying (especially for the people around you), unreliable, obtrusive, and inefficient. By writing a text message, you can state what you mean clearly without having to deal with small talk, interference, worrying about whether the recipient has their phone with them, etc, and save money besides.
My phone also happens to have digital camera and PDA functions integrated, but I chose a phone like that so I wouldn't have to carry a PDA or digicam around (since I don't own either). The result is that neither the PDA nor the digicam is very good, and I would not recommend them for people who have large uses for either, but they meet my needs just fine. An offshot of having so many features integrated into one device is that it becomes more and more general-purpose, and it becomes possible to use it for things it wasn't designed for (e.g. play mp3s). Computers' ability to do things they weren't designed to do seems to be one of the principal reasons Slashdotters like computers, and for me this applies to mobile phones as well.
Of course, I suppose the general attitude towards cell phones is different in the US. Perhaps its more an issue of a country getting its head into the real world.
your grammar is poor so im unsure as to the exact point your making
Oh the irony.
Those should read "I'm", and, more importantly, "you're".
"In fact" is two words, "were" doesn't have an "h" in it, and sentences start with a capital letter and end in a single period (full stop).
Sorry, I don't ordinarily do this, but when a post uses attrocious grammar to criticize the grammar of a grammatically-correct post, something really should be done.
why would i migrate to a new ISA and lose all the software that I already have when I can just grow my current one?
Moving from x86 to, say, PPC results in the loss of almost _NO_ software. Provided you run the same OS, getting your old software running is just a matter of a quick recompile. Unless you're a gcc devoloper, the actual instruction set doesn't matter, and you can choose an architecture based on price, performance, power use, etc.
Of course, some vendors refuse to give you the code for you to recompile, instead insisting that you use a particular ISA and particular library versions. Such vendors are a Bad Thing, and should not be tolerated.
First of all, if you're going to use a broadcast link for private things, then you should encrypt it. Simple as that. Most online banking already is SSL encrypted anyway, so stealing such information is generally impossible.
Second, while you may think that privacy laws _should_ be absolute (and I think you have a point there), current US privacy laws say that the activities discussed in the article are completely legal. If you don't like that, write you congresscritter or something.
I actually live in Africa (Tanzania), and a WiMax based system would be enormously better than what we have now. At the moment, internet access is provided by a few 512kbps VSAT links in urban areas and cat5 wires running through the trees out to internet cafes and homes. Not only is bandwidth hopeless, but connecting to a server accross town incurs 3000ms pingtimes if they happen to be on a different VSAT. Public TV is VHF-broadcast, all other TV is provided by satellite from South Africa. The landline phone system is virtually nonexistant, the national telephony network consists of a few mobile phone providers (which is okay, as even people making 50 dollars a month have mobile phones).
Wiring the country with fibre right now would simply be impossible, the cables would blow down, wash away, be vandalized, etc. It would take 10 years just to get the project past all the bureacracy, and it would certainly be out of date by the time it was completed.
This country doesn't even have a wired link to the outside world, all bandwidth comes in by satellite. The total amount of bandwidth in and out of the country is probably less than 50mbits. Having a temporary backbone that can handle "only" a few hundred mbps will not be a problem for quite a while.
Couldn't agree more. Here in Arusha, Tanzania, we get connectivity via a few ISPs with maybe 512kbps VSAT links each, distributed out via cat5 cables running through trees. Aside from the latency and bandwidth to the outside world being horrible, to connect to a server accross town that happens to be on a different ISP your signal has to go up to orbit and back _twice_. I think you underestimate the number of homes with internet these days, though perhaps thats just because Arusha is full of rich expatriots like me.
However, even in population centres, cables can be blown down, vandalized, etc, so reliability isn't very good. A new ISP here recently started a network based on Navini wireless technology, which avoids these problems, though its a bit expensive even for the expatriot crowd, due to relying on proprietary devices/protocol. A wifi-based ISP would require so many access points that they would be viable to the same sort of problems as cat5 distribution, but WiMax would be a great solution for providing broadband inside a moderately sized population centres.
Actually, the kings still had substantial power after the 1660 restoration. Charles II and James II were able to get away with quite a few things that didn't make parliament very happy. A much bigger turning point was the so-called "glorious revolution" in 1688, when James II was forced out and parliament invited William and Mary of Orange to become king and queen, provided they signed away many of their powers. England is one of the few countries that was able to transition from absolute monarchy into a near-republic with almost no bloodshed.
If you think CNN (Conservative News Network) is left wing, then I must politely ask what you are smoking. CNN is right-wing enough to make any self-respecting liberal sick. They never pointed out the lack of justification for the the Iraq war, and I have not once heard them even mention the Patriot Act. These are things which are important and relevant to the US public, but (apparently due to conservative bias) CNN omits them.
I don't have a problem with the continued existence of conservative drivel like CNN or even fox news. However, I think that there need to be more liberal news sources available to the average American, to prevent American voters from getting such a biased view of the world.
I live in Arusha, Tanzania. There are three major internet providers in town, each of which buys a satellite uplink. My provider connects users by running cat5 cables through trees etc. with the occasional signal booster. Max bandwidth is around 320kbps, average is 40kbps. They charge $54 US a month.
The second major provider uses Navini wireless transmitters and receivers. I'm told that their users get around 500kbps max, 80kbps average. They charge ~$45 a month, but charge $550 for the navini receiver on signup.
The only thing I know about the third major provider is that they're not available in my part of town.
Why would you WANT a GUI installer? Much better to stay with something that always works, and leave more space on the install CD for packages. It's not as though the debian installer is difficult to use, it's dialog-based and all the options are clearly explained, with sensible defaults. Making it use a mouse instead of arrow keys would be a lot of effort for no measureable difference.
As for the usb mouse issue: there are packages available that resolve this automagically, though I agree it should happen by default.
Seems a lot simpler to me, rather than futzing around waiting for X and KDE to start, searching for things, trying to figure out what menu everything will fall under, etc.
Silly GUIers, why do you make your life so hard when there has been a better way for the last 30 years.
GNU/Hurd/Mach is a microkernel-based system. Almost all drivers are actually user-space programs. Thus, "loading a non-Free driver" is basically the same as "running a non-Free application". While RMS is clearly completely opposed to anything non-Free, I doubt that even he would deny users the right to run what programs they want on their own system.
This wouldn't be a problem if US mobile phone companies weren't so braindead in their charging plans, forcing people to pay for incoming calls. The US is essentially the only country in the world that does this, and it really doesn't make sense. Everywhere else, only outgoing calls cost money, and mobile phone companies are still very profitable.
*sigh* How is it that, with all their money, the US is stuck with a mobile phone system inferior to that of most third world countries? I live in Tanzania, and our mobile phone system is superior to the US' in reception, coverage, audio quality, interoperability, price, and convenience.
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nGage games run at a pretty low level, don't they? Just because Symbian has to load at boot doesn't mean we can't immediately kick it out of memory. Anyway, aren't there devices capable of flashing a phone's ROM? This would definitely allow bypassing Symbian.
It seems to me it would be Good Thing to be able to choose your phone hardware vendor seperately from what OS your phone would run. It would therefore be helpful to have a port of Linux running on Nokia phones, Sony phones, etc, so that users can choose to install Linux if they wish. The Linux kernel and gcc have already been ported to arm, which most of these phones use, so running Linux would seem to mostly be a matter of supporting I/O devices (GSM, screen, keypad, bluetooth, MMC, speaker, microphone, camera, etc). Are there any efforts currently to get Linux running on mobile phones that ship with Symbian or Windows by default? How proprietary is the hardware? Are there other open-source systems better-suited to this task?
If a Linux for Phones distro was available I'd install it on my Nokia 6600 in a second. Symbian is just too limiting.
Even if what you say is true, theres no reason why a proprietary solution makes more sense. If I'm putting the life in the hands of a computer, I damn well want to be able to know about every piece of code that computer is running.
But really, Linux isn't a consumer OS. Linux is a kernel frequently used in consumer OSes. This means its been tested by a _lot_ of people, and is that much more stable as a result. There is nothing particularly consumerish about the kernel itself (certainly not the 2.0 kernel), and aerospace companies can easily just configure without consumer-oriented features.
I fail to see why you think open source software is somehow less able to protect human life than proprietary software.
Or just get enough RAM that you don't need swap, and put /tmp on a ramdisk.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the original post, which was pointing out that the chips in these systems are very vulnerable to destruction by electromagnetic pulses.
There are plenty of semiconductor chips made in the US. These chips are just as susceptible to EMPs as any other chip.
So have the control operations well distributed. Theres no reason why you can't have 20% of your operators in Kuwait, 20% in Saudi Arabia, 20% back at the pentagon, 20% somewhere in Europe, etc.
Even keeping all the operators in one place isn't as risky as you claim. The same risks are theoretically present in human chain-of-command systems, in that the military would be pretty crippled if Washington DC were destroyed. In practice, however, it's not that hard to defend a control centre far away from the battle, as is evidenced by the continued existence of most countries' capitals, and so having the benefits of a centralized command centre far outweigh the risks.
If I recall correctly, the relevant scene of The Phantom Menace involved the protaganist accidentally happening to shoot the control ship's main reactor, or something along those lines. Such a vulnerability is hardly realistic or plausible in a world where we don't have a magical force guiding people to a system's weak points.
Tanzania, actually. Cell phone voice communication is the ONLY available voice communication (landlines are virtually nonexistant), but it costs something like 60 US cents a minute. Text messages cost 6 US cents. There is no monthly fee, though, which is nice.
I am told that things are similar in much of Europe, text messages are still a lot cheaper than voice calls.
Frankly, I prefer text as a medium regardless of price. It allows you to think about what you say before you say it, avoids all the "ummm" and other uncomfortable pauses, avoids getting caught up in a (potentially expensive) irrelevant conversation, and you can get your message accross much more accurately and concisely. The fact that you are browsing a text-based forum like slashdot tends to indicate that, at least in some circumstances, you agree with me.
I almost _never_ use my mobile phone for voice communication. It's just too damned expensive. I use my phone for sending and receiving text messages when I am away from my computer. Voice communication is annoying (especially for the people around you), unreliable, obtrusive, and inefficient. By writing a text message, you can state what you mean clearly without having to deal with small talk, interference, worrying about whether the recipient has their phone with them, etc, and save money besides.
My phone also happens to have digital camera and PDA functions integrated, but I chose a phone like that so I wouldn't have to carry a PDA or digicam around (since I don't own either). The result is that neither the PDA nor the digicam is very good, and I would not recommend them for people who have large uses for either, but they meet my needs just fine. An offshot of having so many features integrated into one device is that it becomes more and more general-purpose, and it becomes possible to use it for things it wasn't designed for (e.g. play mp3s). Computers' ability to do things they weren't designed to do seems to be one of the principal reasons Slashdotters like computers, and for me this applies to mobile phones as well.
Of course, I suppose the general attitude towards cell phones is different in the US. Perhaps its more an issue of a country getting its head into the real world.
You do realize that this site _exists_ as a community for people who think that complicated technology is cool?
your grammar is poor so im unsure as to the exact point your making
Oh the irony.
Those should read "I'm", and, more importantly, "you're".
"In fact" is two words, "were" doesn't have an "h" in it, and sentences start with a capital letter and end in a single period (full stop).
Sorry, I don't ordinarily do this, but when a post uses attrocious grammar to criticize the grammar of a grammatically-correct post, something really should be done.
Now, anybody care to criticize my grammar?
why would i migrate to a new ISA and lose all the software that I already have when I can just grow my current one?
Moving from x86 to, say, PPC results in the loss of almost _NO_ software. Provided you run the same OS, getting your old software running is just a matter of a quick recompile. Unless you're a gcc devoloper, the actual instruction set doesn't matter, and you can choose an architecture based on price, performance, power use, etc.
Of course, some vendors refuse to give you the code for you to recompile, instead insisting that you use a particular ISA and particular library versions. Such vendors are a Bad Thing, and should not be tolerated.
First of all, if you're going to use a broadcast link for private things, then you should encrypt it. Simple as that. Most online banking already is SSL encrypted anyway, so stealing such information is generally impossible.
Second, while you may think that privacy laws _should_ be absolute (and I think you have a point there), current US privacy laws say that the activities discussed in the article are completely legal. If you don't like that, write you congresscritter or something.
I actually live in Africa (Tanzania), and a WiMax based system would be enormously better than what we have now. At the moment, internet access is provided by a few 512kbps VSAT links in urban areas and cat5 wires running through the trees out to internet cafes and homes. Not only is bandwidth hopeless, but connecting to a server accross town incurs 3000ms pingtimes if they happen to be on a different VSAT. Public TV is VHF-broadcast, all other TV is provided by satellite from South Africa. The landline phone system is virtually nonexistant, the national telephony network consists of a few mobile phone providers (which is okay, as even people making 50 dollars a month have mobile phones).
Wiring the country with fibre right now would simply be impossible, the cables would blow down, wash away, be vandalized, etc. It would take 10 years just to get the project past all the bureacracy, and it would certainly be out of date by the time it was completed.
This country doesn't even have a wired link to the outside world, all bandwidth comes in by satellite. The total amount of bandwidth in and out of the country is probably less than 50mbits. Having a temporary backbone that can handle "only" a few hundred mbps will not be a problem for quite a while.
Couldn't agree more. Here in Arusha, Tanzania, we get connectivity via a few ISPs with maybe 512kbps VSAT links each, distributed out via cat5 cables running through trees. Aside from the latency and bandwidth to the outside world being horrible, to connect to a server accross town that happens to be on a different ISP your signal has to go up to orbit and back _twice_. I think you underestimate the number of homes with internet these days, though perhaps thats just because Arusha is full of rich expatriots like me.
However, even in population centres, cables can be blown down, vandalized, etc, so reliability isn't very good. A new ISP here recently started a network based on Navini wireless technology, which avoids these problems, though its a bit expensive even for the expatriot crowd, due to relying on proprietary devices/protocol. A wifi-based ISP would require so many access points that they would be viable to the same sort of problems as cat5 distribution, but WiMax would be a great solution for providing broadband inside a moderately sized population centres.
Actually, the kings still had substantial power after the 1660 restoration. Charles II and James II were able to get away with quite a few things that didn't make parliament very happy. A much bigger turning point was the so-called "glorious revolution" in 1688, when James II was forced out and parliament invited William and Mary of Orange to become king and queen, provided they signed away many of their powers. England is one of the few countries that was able to transition from absolute monarchy into a near-republic with almost no bloodshed.
Already been done.
left-wing (such as CNN)
If you think CNN (Conservative News Network) is left wing, then I must politely ask what you are smoking. CNN is right-wing enough to make any self-respecting liberal sick. They never pointed out the lack of justification for the the Iraq war, and I have not once heard them even mention the Patriot Act. These are things which are important and relevant to the US public, but (apparently due to conservative bias) CNN omits them.
I don't have a problem with the continued existence of conservative drivel like CNN or even fox news. However, I think that there need to be more liberal news sources available to the average American, to prevent American voters from getting such a biased view of the world.
I live in Arusha, Tanzania. There are three major internet providers in town, each of which buys a satellite uplink. My provider connects users by running cat5 cables through trees etc. with the occasional signal booster. Max bandwidth is around 320kbps, average is 40kbps. They charge $54 US a month.
The second major provider uses Navini wireless transmitters and receivers. I'm told that their users get around 500kbps max, 80kbps average. They charge ~$45 a month, but charge $550 for the navini receiver on signup.
The only thing I know about the third major provider is that they're not available in my part of town.
Why would you WANT a GUI installer? Much better to stay with something that always works, and leave more space on the install CD for packages. It's not as though the debian installer is difficult to use, it's dialog-based and all the options are clearly explained, with sensible defaults. Making it use a mouse instead of arrow keys would be a lot of effort for no measureable difference.
As for the usb mouse issue: there are packages available that resolve this automagically, though I agree it should happen by default.
Or, the even easier way, on REAL real distributions:
sudo apt-get install dosbox
[enter root password]
[dependencies magically resolved, package magically downloaded and installed]
dosbox
Seems a lot simpler to me, rather than futzing around waiting for X and KDE to start, searching for things, trying to figure out what menu everything will fall under, etc.
Silly GUIers, why do you make your life so hard when there has been a better way for the last 30 years.
Writing this on an AthlonXP 2800+ system with a 200W (shuttle), works fine even during high usage.
GNU/Hurd/Mach is a microkernel-based system. Almost all drivers are actually user-space programs. Thus, "loading a non-Free driver" is basically the same as "running a non-Free application". While RMS is clearly completely opposed to anything non-Free, I doubt that even he would deny users the right to run what programs they want on their own system.
Every byte on a disc partition has to map to a location in memory. Basically it's like treating your hard drive as a really slow RAM module.
This wouldn't be a problem if US mobile phone companies weren't so braindead in their charging plans, forcing people to pay for incoming calls. The US is essentially the only country in the world that does this, and it really doesn't make sense. Everywhere else, only outgoing calls cost money, and mobile phone companies are still very profitable.
*sigh* How is it that, with all their money, the US is stuck with a mobile phone system inferior to that of most third world countries? I live in Tanzania, and our mobile phone system is superior to the US' in reception, coverage, audio quality, interoperability, price, and convenience.
It has a CompactFlash slot. Add a CF enet card.