That's daft. With LEDs if you want more light, you simply use more LEDs. They are not bulbs, they're bloody diodes! Overdriving LEDs results in earth deaths, this has been known for 40+ years, keeping them within tolerances will ensure they'll last forever, or as near it in human terms.
Problem is, driving more LEDs is tricky. Clusters wired in series a la Christmas lights die if one of the LEDs die (see Lights of America LED bulbs). Wiring them in parallel, you need to balance the current so one LED isn't being overdriven while the other is being starved for current.
A proper LED bulb like philips often have a driver circuit per LED (when you're dealing with 5W LEDs, it's not a bad idea), but the downside is adding LEDs means adding a lot of cost in driver circuits.
Absolutely true. I cannot believe that Apple is the only company still making a 1200 vertical resolution screen. It's annoying having to spend $2700 on the only decent laptop that still exists.
I'm pretty sure Dell sells laptops that do 1920x1200 as well, it may not be as a standard feature like Apple, but definitely available as an option.
Anyhow, there must be some way to cobble something together with say, an iPad. iPad runs an app that just turns it into a screen (2048x1536), while the keyboard part has the standard PC bits.
Google analytics can be easily blocked, as/and it doesn't live in your system as an effective trojan.
It's not a good thing, but that's why you simply block it. Ghostery does this just fine for example.
Actually, you can't just block Google Analytics anymore - a lot of sites are purposely redirecting links THROUGH Google Analytics - you click the link, a javascript runs that passes the URL to Google which then redirects you to the next page.
It's quite ingenious - when a browser gets a 302 redirect, it preserves Referer information (so the website gets the originating page), AND the webmaster gets the click passed through Analytics without Analytics screwing up the Referer.
Yeah, it should always be never. In what situation would shutting down the cell networks be appropriate? Never mind the fact that government officials are obviously willing to use this merely to suppress free speech, so the process can't possibly be acceptable.
Which means that any authority trying to make things more convenient for users should never, ever, do it.
To know why it's an issue, realize that BART decided to install repeaters that they bought, and they operate so users of BART can have cell service where there was none before.
If as a result they can never, ever turn them off (barring stuff like it breaking down), then the take-away from all that is to never ever bother installing them in the first place and let users just live without their cellphones for their journey. In which case the only way to get service is to have the users petition cell providers to install antennas that cover the dead spots. Of course, the authority owning the land will probably not allow them to install it on the premises (see above) so there will be dead spots where existing antenna installations cannot reach.
I suppose that's the sad lesson to be learned - better to not provide, than to provide and get slapped with lawsuits should you fail to provide. And this applies to any place right now with bad cell service - including underground car parks and such where the building owner might want ot make their tenant's lives a little bit more convenient.
Now, if it's the carrier's own signals then yeah, you can't block it ever...
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but the flip side has to be considered as well. I suppose it's like providing a WiFi hotspot, deciding you don't like the crowds and turning it off, then being slapped with a lawsuit. Perhaps that's why government buildings don't have guest wifi.
I'll be impressed when they finally get around to changing DDR to TDR or QDR.
QDR's already around. In fact, a popular console already uses it. It's still heavily patented though, so it's not very appealing.
The Playstation 3 has 256MB of XDR-DRAM by RAMBUS (yes, that RAMBUS). It does QDR - two bits on falling edge, two bits on rising edge (using multi-level signalling).
It's tricky for memory because the bus speed is high, signalling ovltages low, and motherboard traces bad enough that the eye window is very small, so a lot of (patented) tricks are needed to "open up" the eye and recover the bits from it. Impedance mismatches are a killer (and they happen at connectors especially).
Second, even among GSM carriers, unlocked phones aren't widely available in brick-and-mortar stores in the United States. If you're considering buying one sight unseen through mail order, what do you plan to do should you find its display or touch screen unusably unergonomic?
If you don't mind a lack of choice, you can march into a brick and mortar store and buy an unlocked phone. In the US, there is at least one big retailer selling unlocked phones. And they'll happily take your cash for it.
Not even sight unseen - they have WORKING MODELS on display (a lot of them!) for you to play with, too. You can feel them up and everything.
In Canada, Best Buy also sells unlocked phones - they have a small "unlocked phone" section though it's mostly blackberries and Nexus S's.
The other place would be online with Google, in which case you can go to the store and see how the phone is. (I refuse to acknowledge Android compatible phones - there's only one current Android phone, and it's the Galaxy Nexus).
FYI - Galaxy Nexus also unlocked. Though it's a HUGE PITA to buy without contract since few stores are willing to sell you one. Best bet are those small AWS carriers that only do PAYG.
Third, even for GSM phones purchased through mail order, some carriers have been known to "slam" a subscriber to a more expensive plan should the carrier detect that the subscriber is using the SIM for a dumbphone plan in a smartphone.
Well, that's easy for the carrier to tell - the IMEI reveals all - phone model and everything. Since the IMEI is required to connect, the carrier knows when you switched phones and what phone you're using. So hiding a smartphone is impossible from the carrier. And since data is where carriers make money...
Libertarians don't want to pay taxes, but let one of them dial 911 just once and be told "Tough shit. Deal with it yourself" and watch them scream like little girls.
That's what happens. It was an optional service since they were living in a rural part (the fire service was done by a nearby city who offered the option).
This ship will be similar - the US will rescue them per maritime obligations, but they're also free to detain them as refugees and such. And unless they had the presence of mind to grab their passports, they'd be treated as such.
And if they're US citizens, I bet the IRS would be VERY interested in talking with them - I believe the US has a rule stating that all income earned by a US citizen, even if overseas, must be declared. (And if you're paying less - the US gets the difference from what you paid the host country and what the US would've charged you).
Non-citizens, if they're there because the US won't let them in, deported.
Seems ricky for me - one disaster aboard ship and you can lose your entire workforce because the US will detain and deport them.
But that only works for repeated transactions. Due to the types of projects Kickstarter is trying to fund, I person will probably only have a few projects in their lifetime. I do agree with the verified identity though.
Perhaps what people need to do is realize what kickstarter is - it's crowdsourced VC funding, effectively. Except the investment you make (the kickstarter backing amount) gets you whatever is posted as the reward (or the satisfaction of knowing you contributed to society).
Like all VC investment - companies can and do fail, or the technology just doesn't work out. It's a risk all kickstarter backers have to examine and decide for themselves if it's worth it. Though, at the very worst, all that happens is you're out the money.
Good projects will do a whole investor prospectus as if they were soliciting VC funding. The only difference is, after a project has raised enough funds, kickstarter still lets you contribute. It's a good time then to talk to the people behind it - if they're responsible, they'll reply back. If they decided to run away with the money, they won't.
Anyhow, kickstarter pretty much requires a verified identity - they have to send the money somewhere! When you're soliciting many tens of thousands of dollars, that sort of thing is also scrutinized by the feds - money laundering and the like.
Perhaps a different way would be for kickstarter to offer the money with milestones like traditional funding sources - you get a chunk of change to get started, then meet a milestone and people can decide if they've met it and release the money for that milestone, etc.
OK, so how, precisely, are we to adhere to IEEE standards when viewing the standard is FUCKING PAYWALLED?
Seriously, folks, this culture of pay-to-play needs to be shut down. When you can't even read a fucking standard which will affect the entire industry without some asshole demanding payment, the system is broken.
WTF ever happened to public domain?
Actually, all IEEE 802 stadanrds are freely available. The reason you have to pay $5 right NOW is if you want it right now. If you want, you can wait 6 months and get it for free.
The IEEE, like many other orgnaizations (including ISO) have paid standards, and most stndards require payment. It was just the popularity of 802.11 that the IEEE decided to open access to the 802 standard track for everyone. Of course, since the people who want the standard early are all the manufacturers trying to get a leg up on each other, the IEEE offers a brief exclusionary period so those who pay for early access get it. Everyone else too cheap to pay can wait (and delay their product by 6 months).
Nothing at all unusual - Google does it with Android - want access to the latest Android code, and license "with Google"? You gotta join the OHA and sign a ton of agreements.
About the only truly open standard spec I can remember is USB. Everything else is paywalled. IEEE's Get802 program is probably one of the few times the IEEE has opened up standards to public viewing - most other standards are closed paywall only.
Heck, the PCI spec was supposed to be free and open (but paywalled) and some guy went to post them online under that thought. He was forced to remove it.
Of course, just because it's in the standard doesn't make it free of patent agreements. 802.3 (Ethernet) is still patented, and implementing GigE means having to pay HP for use of auto-MDIX patents. And that's really what happens in standards committees - a lot of back and forth over who can get their patents in the spec. It's why Apple has trouble with nano-SIM (Nokia, RIM oppose it, because it means Apple would pay less in FRAND, even if Apple gives away nano-SIM for free). The best technical stuff rarely comes out of standards - it's all politicking on who can get their patents in, backroom deals, etc.
LEDs, in general, are also much sturdier than CFLs ore incandescents. They should last for 5 years without a hitch. The 20 years claim is likely valid.
Depends on the LED.
The cluster ones like Lights of America are horrible - likely done usually the cheapest LEDs they could get so they burn.
The Philips one are a lot better - they use better drive circuits (the LoA clusters are basically a christmas tree string in a bulb formfactor - granted they use a full wave bridge and caps to make them NOT flicker, but still little regulation) and fewer LEDs, so the drive circuits can be adapted to each LED individually.
Those LEDs tend to be quite sturdy - when driven properly (within voltage and current spec, and overcurrent protected) they last forever - the only reason you swap 'em out is because LEDs dim with age (their lifespan is 50% brightness). But without regulated drive circuits, LED bulbs can go very quickly.
You must've missed the article the other day where the Secretary of Defense called Climate Change a threat to national security.
Which is true because you'll have nations fighting over resources, especially water.
Thing is though, it's the secretary of defense - so this would be a call for increased military spending. Climate change is real, the only debate is how much of an effect humans are causing (from none to a lot). Climate change deniers are simply stating it's changing not because of human activity, so full steam ahead to higher profits (unfortunately - that's all it seems to boil down to - deny climate change because dammit, I want my yacht!).
Of course, we soon won't know how much of the change is happening at all, just we better go and arm ourselves.
They must have, because there is much less CO2 in the atmosphere today than it was the case in the Mesozoic. They must work harder at extracting it today than they did back then.
Trees also respire (take O2, give off CO2). The net contribution of all trees to the oxygen on the plaet is around 20% or so of all the oxygen avialable. 50% comes from plankton blooms. The rest I'm not sure where - algae perhaps.
Trees take CO2 and produce O2 as part of photosynthesis. But at night when there isn't any going on, trees take O2 and produce CO2 for energy.
You mean 911 operators cant find out exactly where your cellphone is and which direction you are traveling any time they want? Even just through getting a text message? But I saw that on CSI like two years ago...
That might be the reason why it's taken so long to implement. E911 was mandated after 9/11 which basically means every 911 call gets GPS positioning information. Perhaps 911 texts get the same thing - sending a text via 911 grabs current GPS location and sends it out.
Heck, anothe reason is SMS is only best-effort, and many times can get duplicated or delayed by hours or days. Perhaps 911 texts are also specially handled by the network to ensure immediately delivery.
How did you test? I've used audacity to generate tones on my computer, and I've heard the sound out of my speakers when I play the resulting 20khz wave form. But how do I know my speakers are actually outputting a 20khz waveform? I have no way of verifying that it's actually outputting that tone, and not some lower frequency tone because the speakers can't handle it. I'm pretty sure it's actually a lower tone, because my hearing is generally considered to be bad by me and others who know me.
Well, audacity is probably working quite well, and for the most part, the speakers are too. However, sound is not produced just by a DAC and a speaker, but also by interactions between the sound and its environment. Just because the speaker can produce 20kHz (not guaranteed a flat response to that frequency) doesn't mean that what your ears hear is 20kHz. It's 20kHz plus a lot of distortion caused by the speakers, enclosure, etc., not having a flat response at all. In fact, what one might believe is 20kHz might be lower due to harmonics caused by distortion (from the DAC to the filters to the analog amps, speaker, enclosure (computer if laptop)...
Pretty much the only way is a function generator connected to a pair of well-matched headphones whose transfer function is well characterised and behavior at high frequencies is known.
I don't know what qualifies as cyberstalking under 'stralian law, but this looks like it might qualify. I don't know any law that limits cyberstalking to just one target. Digging out an employer is quite an intrusion, obviously intended to intimidate.
Perhaps. But if the information was there on the web page, then really, it's the liker's fault for making that information public.
The internet is a harsh mistress - because what separates it from life as we knew it is two things:
1) It never forgets Something you posted 20 years ago can come back today. Deleting the original doesn't guarantee destruction of many copies (see Streisand Effect). Very rarely, if at all, has human society ever experienced something like this.
2) It's global. What was something meant to be among friends is easily spread throughout the world
Combined together, everything one does on the Internet is basically logged, filed, classified, and avialable for lookup. Finding out who "liked" something is fairly easy. And from there, finding out more information on them because they made it public, even easier.
Digging out the employer can be quite easy by just Googling the person if it's part of their public profile. Sure making it even easier to see may be a dick move, but if it's publicly available online, I don't see the problem. Heck, stuff like that often crops up due to th Streisand effect.
The strategy for Verizon would be to ultimately migrate everyone from its 3G network to its 4G network, and it has no dog in the iPhone vs Android phone fight. As the main story mentioned, their 3G network is already congested, and until enough customers switch over, it makes sense to have incentives getting people to their 4G. From a networking POV, 4G mandates the use of IPv6, which 3G isn't, and so w/ 4G, Verizon is not going to run into an address exhaustion situation. In fact, the IPv4 address exhaustion is most visible in the mobile space, causing many international mobile carriers to switch over to IPv6.
In fact, do the carriers still have their 1G and 2G networks?
IP address exhaustion isn't an issue, actually.
First, Verizon can get new IPs when it wants to - IANA hasn't actually run out of IPs for North American just yet. But it's irrelevant as smartphones don't need a live IP.
Services for wireless internet are heavily segregated. Why does a basic phone on a "social networking" plan need a real IP? It can be heavily proxied back and forth and no one would know the difference (or care).
A smartphone ditto - sure it needs AN IP, but it doesn't mean you can't go through layers of NAT, firewalls and transparent proxies that help compress data and make sites load faster (verizon DOES do this). Similarly, people who use those mobile hotspots are similar - they're already behind a NAT, so NATing them isn't an issue at all. Probalby no proxy, and probably just a basic firewall. Heck, even the mobile sticks probably get the same as well.
If you want raw unfiltered unfirewalled access, you need to get the top-tier expensive data plan that gives you it (usually marketed as "VPN" because stuff like IPSec don't handle NAT nicely). A raw IP with complete access to the Internet.
LIfe under IPv6 won't be much different. Proxies, firewalls, maybe no NAT but the IPv6 router controlling it all. One thing that makes life simple though is since they practically have ot use DHCPv6 (why waste bandwidth with router advertisements and stuff?), your plan determines your prefix, and the gateway routers can easily use that to filter your access appropriately.
All this has been user land exploits, which require a user to do something. Some of them haven't even required the user to do something stupid, other than to go to "bad" web sites. But stop babbling about the kernel when it's not involved.
Most modern malware exist in userland these days because it's the most effective and still does what you want.
First, userland hacks will never trigger any sort of alert to authenticate, and most OSes support some way to start up automatically on login, also accessible by the user. Next, the malware can really do a lot of things - if you want access to user data, you got it, if you want to send spam, no admin required. If you want to DDoS some machine, ditto.
The infection vector is often manually installed onto vulnerable sites, but the payload can be run as a normal user in most circumstances. Sure, it's a lot harder to hide and any elevated application can nuke and kill them, so you have to counteract it by using plausible sounding executable names and making it so that each piece looks out of each other.
As long as security is taken without respect to Dancing Pigs, all users are vulnerable. It doesn't matter what OS you run - Windows, Linux, OS X, etc., or what permissions you run them at (admin only, user only), they're all vulnerable. Hell, people who buy shell accounts for Linux are often user-only and may get infected if they do much with it.
If they're continuing to update the "old" iPad well after the "new" iPad came out, it seems logical to conclude that they intend to maintain two lines of iPads.
Not likely.
Apple's probably using hte iPad 2 as a production test platform. One that is relatively unimportant other than price point. The test here is a new fabrication process - things can go horrendously wrong still (poor yields, dies after 2 months, etc). Given the new iPad probably outsells the iPad 2 by a significant margin (I'd be surprised if the iPad 2 outsold Android tablets), it's the perfect way to test things. First there's a guaranteed fallback (so if it dies after 2 months, or poor yields mean you only get 10% of the number you expect, production can still continue). Next, it moves slow enough that even if there is a shortage, it would be brief and probably unnoticed - enough to switch production back to the old model.
It's just like when Apple did the Liquidmetal tests using the SIM ejection tool - it's something they can rapidly use another process for (e.g., steel), so they can test out new production methods without adversely affecting production.
When you're cranking stuff out by the millions, it takes a lot of careful analysis to minimize waste and production errors - they cost money. So low-volume, low-demand products make the perfect test platform to iron out production kinks.
This argument precludes the possibility of easily sourcing a pentabular screwdriver. In short, your logic falls flat on its face.
There aren't any easy sources. iFixit had to specially comission a build - they CNC cut their own pentalobe screws. Their cheaper kits use a star screwdriver that improperly fits, but since it's a single use item, it's not a big deal (and it'll leave marks on the screw that a proper screwdriver won't). They reluctantly sell these things to the public.
Basically, if someone is willing to go through the trouble of sourcing a screwdriver and paying $30 for it (plus shipping), it's already a one up from someone who'll just take a knife to unscrew it (yes, I've seen that happen).
It's basically one of those "if you're doing this, you probalby know what you're doing" intelligence tests. A 5 lobe screwdriver is pretty hard to find to begin with, and those that'll go through the effort of procuring one, well, probably have the skills and know-how to do it.
If you're going to places like iFixit to get tools to repair stuff, that's already a huge step up in the skills game. Sure a skilled repairman could make the same mistake, but they're also far more attentive and if they're missing a screw or have parts left over, will probably investigate. There I Fixed It has some stunning examples of what people can do. (Unfortunately, it also contains some smart fixes as well, but the older entries are more interesting).
Old drives as small as 100GB capacity have got to be at least 4 -6 years old by now. Unless you bought them new and just stored them in a box this whole time, chances are, they've seen a lot of hours of operation already. They don't have a resale value more than $20 or so these days, so you're simply not out much money to throw them away or give them to a recycler.
Exactly. Though, 100GB drives are plenty of storage for people. If you want to earn some brownie points at the next family gathering, you can stuff them in your parent's PC or something or get a small drive-less NAS appliance and use it as a backup server.
Doesn't cost much, but lots of brownie points and you ge tto fulfill that need to reuse old hardware. Especially the backup side - most likely they don't have a backup routine or schedule or something.
Or hell, maybe they've been complaining that their hard drive is full. Use it to upgrade their PC on the cheap. Or install a new version of Windows without wiping out the ability to use XP or something. Or stick on Ubuntu on it.
The common user will be thrilled to get a "big" hard drive for free. Use it to do best practices (backup), evangelize (install Linux), or just make them happy by having more space for their photos, whatever.
Yep same reason basketball isn't called aerial hoopball.
Except basketball today can still be played with baskets. Today's rules and everything, except the equipment from the late 19th century.
The only difference is that the game would slow down a bit as someone has to retrieve the ball from the basket after every successful shot. It's the only reason why the bottom was removed from the basket in the first place - to not have to stop play and have someone get on a ladder, climb up, retrieve ball, climb down, keep ladder, and restart play.
American football is completely different from the other football where most interactions with the ball involve feet (some involve hands and heads).
This inspired Steve Jobs to convince friend Woz to design and build Blue boxes, which eventually lead to the founding of Apple... now the biggest company in the world...
Apple started from hacker/phreaker roots, and inspired by an article published in a magazine. Just imagine the damage they've done to the future by pulling this Magazine.
Actually, Woz built the blue box on his own. Jobs convinced him he could sell it for like $125 or so (it cost $25 to build). But those were really just the prankish college days. To found Apple, Woz had to hock his beloved HP calculator in order to buy the parts necessary to build the Apple 1.
Jobs and Woz were friends very early on (started in childhood).
Anyhow, I think the damage caused these days would be far less than in the 70s. Firstly, it seems deadtree is dying in favor of electronic media, and I'm sure anyone who can't find the deadtree can find billions of similar articles online, if not going to the official website and reading it there. In the 70s, magazines were timely and important sources of information. These days, not so much since the Internet is far faster at it.
Close, Each bus bar pair can support up to 500A, which can be increased by adding more copper. Each bus bar pair can support up to 6KW, while power can be increased by using more copper. The bus bars can be adjusted for higher current, depending on the desired power per column, as they are interchangeable. Normally the Open Rack has three bus bar pairs installed, but it is also configurable with two or one bus bar pairs in the power zone: link
That bus bar had better be pretty damn big cross-sectionally. 500A is a LOT of current. And if there's three, that's 750A. You better put that power supply at the bottom of the rack, because the IIR losses are huge (they grow with the square of the current - pass twice as much current, and the loss goes up 4 times).
Pretty much the only way to have racks of it is to make the roof and floor out of solid metal and weld the racks to both sides (IIR losses are huge at connection points). Hell, that's how welding works - high currents, low voltage. Any bit of dirt between the rack's bus bars and the power cable will weld them together over time, if not cause a fire due to heat.
Hell, the voltage drops are pretty big as well. 500A, if the connection points add 0.01 ohms, you're looking at 5V. (And using IIR, that's a good 250W of power lost). Get it under 0.001 ohms and you're looking at 25W dissipation in the connectors and still half a volt of drop, which is nearly 5% voltage drop.
There's a reason why telecoms use 48V, and why electrical towers run at hundreds of kilovolts. It's the best mix of voltage conversions and acceptable power losses. Or why datacenters have other voltages like 208V or 240V readily available - lower the current and the cables can be made much smaller.
Heck, even *CARS* are considering switching to a 48V system to be able to power everything.
I'd rather think that if you can remember the source of everything you know YOU got a very unusual mind.
In my case I tend to remember the gist of things, usually just enough to (somewhat) reconstruct the entire subject, but fluff like where it came from, who wrote it, what form or language it was in etc. gets filtered out over time... That said, sometimes I can link two items knowing they came from the same source but I'd still have no clue what that source might have been...
Which is why when you do research, you employ a lot of modern technology. Such as a pencil/pen and paper. Or a photocopier. Or a computer/tablet/smartphone/etc. Using that equipment, you note down your source and any items that are interesting for citation and reference later.
Knowing the gist won't help you with your paper if it raises the "where did you get THAT?" comment (or, as we're fond of, [citation needed]).
If you're doing research, it's part of the whole research process, and if you know the gist, but cannot find the citation, then you have to dig through and find the thing (hope you took good notes). There's many reasons, but an important one is to ensure you didn't get the point wrong (very important) or miss out of any specific limitations.
That's a researcher's job to do this stuff - index their sources and previous papers and have them for citation. For general knowledge purpoees, sure the gist is fine. For serious work that builds on others, it's part of your job to not forget, which is why beyond pen/paper, there's actually specialized software meant ot help keep track of papers and notes.
Research is all about documentation - X comes about because of A, B, C, which are previous works, and D, which is something you just researched, so the combination of A, B, C and D produces X. If C was a source you forgot to cite, and there's no obvious way to see how C can be derived from A, B and D, well...
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Problem is, driving more LEDs is tricky. Clusters wired in series a la Christmas lights die if one of the LEDs die (see Lights of America LED bulbs). Wiring them in parallel, you need to balance the current so one LED isn't being overdriven while the other is being starved for current.
A proper LED bulb like philips often have a driver circuit per LED (when you're dealing with 5W LEDs, it's not a bad idea), but the downside is adding LEDs means adding a lot of cost in driver circuits.
I'm pretty sure Dell sells laptops that do 1920x1200 as well, it may not be as a standard feature like Apple, but definitely available as an option.
Anyhow, there must be some way to cobble something together with say, an iPad. iPad runs an app that just turns it into a screen (2048x1536), while the keyboard part has the standard PC bits.
Actually, you can't just block Google Analytics anymore - a lot of sites are purposely redirecting links THROUGH Google Analytics - you click the link, a javascript runs that passes the URL to Google which then redirects you to the next page.
It's quite ingenious - when a browser gets a 302 redirect, it preserves Referer information (so the website gets the originating page), AND the webmaster gets the click passed through Analytics without Analytics screwing up the Referer.
NoScript fixes this so you can block google-analytics.com completely and still browse the web - NoScript Surrogate Scripts for Google Analytics.
The other option is to opt-out of analytics and trust Google...
Which means that any authority trying to make things more convenient for users should never, ever, do it.
To know why it's an issue, realize that BART decided to install repeaters that they bought, and they operate so users of BART can have cell service where there was none before.
If as a result they can never, ever turn them off (barring stuff like it breaking down), then the take-away from all that is to never ever bother installing them in the first place and let users just live without their cellphones for their journey. In which case the only way to get service is to have the users petition cell providers to install antennas that cover the dead spots. Of course, the authority owning the land will probably not allow them to install it on the premises (see above) so there will be dead spots where existing antenna installations cannot reach.
I suppose that's the sad lesson to be learned - better to not provide, than to provide and get slapped with lawsuits should you fail to provide. And this applies to any place right now with bad cell service - including underground car parks and such where the building owner might want ot make their tenant's lives a little bit more convenient.
Now, if it's the carrier's own signals then yeah, you can't block it ever...
I don't disagree with the sentiment, but the flip side has to be considered as well. I suppose it's like providing a WiFi hotspot, deciding you don't like the crowds and turning it off, then being slapped with a lawsuit. Perhaps that's why government buildings don't have guest wifi.
That's only what, 12 people in the US? Can't we just put 'em in gitmo and be done with it?
QDR's already around. In fact, a popular console already uses it. It's still heavily patented though, so it's not very appealing.
The Playstation 3 has 256MB of XDR-DRAM by RAMBUS (yes, that RAMBUS). It does QDR - two bits on falling edge, two bits on rising edge (using multi-level signalling).
It's tricky for memory because the bus speed is high, signalling ovltages low, and motherboard traces bad enough that the eye window is very small, so a lot of (patented) tricks are needed to "open up" the eye and recover the bits from it. Impedance mismatches are a killer (and they happen at connectors especially).
If you don't mind a lack of choice, you can march into a brick and mortar store and buy an unlocked phone. In the US, there is at least one big retailer selling unlocked phones. And they'll happily take your cash for it.
Not even sight unseen - they have WORKING MODELS on display (a lot of them!) for you to play with, too. You can feel them up and everything.
If you need an unlocked phone in a hurry, they may be the only option, though they can sell out. Though like I said, the choice can be limited.
In Canada, Best Buy also sells unlocked phones - they have a small "unlocked phone" section though it's mostly blackberries and Nexus S's.
The other place would be online with Google, in which case you can go to the store and see how the phone is. (I refuse to acknowledge Android compatible phones - there's only one current Android phone, and it's the Galaxy Nexus).
FYI - Galaxy Nexus also unlocked. Though it's a HUGE PITA to buy without contract since few stores are willing to sell you one. Best bet are those small AWS carriers that only do PAYG.
Well, that's easy for the carrier to tell - the IMEI reveals all - phone model and everything. Since the IMEI is required to connect, the carrier knows when you switched phones and what phone you're using. So hiding a smartphone is impossible from the carrier. And since data is where carriers make money ...
They whine and whine and whine all about it.
See a homeowner refused to pay a $35 monthly fee for fire protection and when their house catches fire, they protested since they protected a neighbour's house (who DID pay the fee).
That's what happens. It was an optional service since they were living in a rural part (the fire service was done by a nearby city who offered the option).
This ship will be similar - the US will rescue them per maritime obligations, but they're also free to detain them as refugees and such. And unless they had the presence of mind to grab their passports, they'd be treated as such.
And if they're US citizens, I bet the IRS would be VERY interested in talking with them - I believe the US has a rule stating that all income earned by a US citizen, even if overseas, must be declared. (And if you're paying less - the US gets the difference from what you paid the host country and what the US would've charged you).
Non-citizens, if they're there because the US won't let them in, deported.
Seems ricky for me - one disaster aboard ship and you can lose your entire workforce because the US will detain and deport them.
Perhaps what people need to do is realize what kickstarter is - it's crowdsourced VC funding, effectively. Except the investment you make (the kickstarter backing amount) gets you whatever is posted as the reward (or the satisfaction of knowing you contributed to society).
Like all VC investment - companies can and do fail, or the technology just doesn't work out. It's a risk all kickstarter backers have to examine and decide for themselves if it's worth it. Though, at the very worst, all that happens is you're out the money.
Good projects will do a whole investor prospectus as if they were soliciting VC funding. The only difference is, after a project has raised enough funds, kickstarter still lets you contribute. It's a good time then to talk to the people behind it - if they're responsible, they'll reply back. If they decided to run away with the money, they won't.
Anyhow, kickstarter pretty much requires a verified identity - they have to send the money somewhere! When you're soliciting many tens of thousands of dollars, that sort of thing is also scrutinized by the feds - money laundering and the like.
Perhaps a different way would be for kickstarter to offer the money with milestones like traditional funding sources - you get a chunk of change to get started, then meet a milestone and people can decide if they've met it and release the money for that milestone, etc.
Actually, all IEEE 802 stadanrds are freely available. The reason you have to pay $5 right NOW is if you want it right now. If you want, you can wait 6 months and get it for free.
The IEEE, like many other orgnaizations (including ISO) have paid standards, and most stndards require payment. It was just the popularity of 802.11 that the IEEE decided to open access to the 802 standard track for everyone. Of course, since the people who want the standard early are all the manufacturers trying to get a leg up on each other, the IEEE offers a brief exclusionary period so those who pay for early access get it. Everyone else too cheap to pay can wait (and delay their product by 6 months).
Nothing at all unusual - Google does it with Android - want access to the latest Android code, and license "with Google"? You gotta join the OHA and sign a ton of agreements.
About the only truly open standard spec I can remember is USB. Everything else is paywalled. IEEE's Get802 program is probably one of the few times the IEEE has opened up standards to public viewing - most other standards are closed paywall only.
Heck, the PCI spec was supposed to be free and open (but paywalled) and some guy went to post them online under that thought. He was forced to remove it.
Of course, just because it's in the standard doesn't make it free of patent agreements. 802.3 (Ethernet) is still patented, and implementing GigE means having to pay HP for use of auto-MDIX patents. And that's really what happens in standards committees - a lot of back and forth over who can get their patents in the spec. It's why Apple has trouble with nano-SIM (Nokia, RIM oppose it, because it means Apple would pay less in FRAND, even if Apple gives away nano-SIM for free). The best technical stuff rarely comes out of standards - it's all politicking on who can get their patents in, backroom deals, etc.
Depends on the LED.
The cluster ones like Lights of America are horrible - likely done usually the cheapest LEDs they could get so they burn.
The Philips one are a lot better - they use better drive circuits (the LoA clusters are basically a christmas tree string in a bulb formfactor - granted they use a full wave bridge and caps to make them NOT flicker, but still little regulation) and fewer LEDs, so the drive circuits can be adapted to each LED individually.
Those LEDs tend to be quite sturdy - when driven properly (within voltage and current spec, and overcurrent protected) they last forever - the only reason you swap 'em out is because LEDs dim with age (their lifespan is 50% brightness). But without regulated drive circuits, LED bulbs can go very quickly.
Which is true because you'll have nations fighting over resources, especially water.
Thing is though, it's the secretary of defense - so this would be a call for increased military spending. Climate change is real, the only debate is how much of an effect humans are causing (from none to a lot). Climate change deniers are simply stating it's changing not because of human activity, so full steam ahead to higher profits (unfortunately - that's all it seems to boil down to - deny climate change because dammit, I want my yacht!).
Of course, we soon won't know how much of the change is happening at all, just we better go and arm ourselves.
Trees also respire (take O2, give off CO2). The net contribution of all trees to the oxygen on the plaet is around 20% or so of all the oxygen avialable. 50% comes from plankton blooms. The rest I'm not sure where - algae perhaps.
Trees take CO2 and produce O2 as part of photosynthesis. But at night when there isn't any going on, trees take O2 and produce CO2 for energy.
That might be the reason why it's taken so long to implement. E911 was mandated after 9/11 which basically means every 911 call gets GPS positioning information. Perhaps 911 texts get the same thing - sending a text via 911 grabs current GPS location and sends it out.
Heck, anothe reason is SMS is only best-effort, and many times can get duplicated or delayed by hours or days. Perhaps 911 texts are also specially handled by the network to ensure immediately delivery.
Well, audacity is probably working quite well, and for the most part, the speakers are too. However, sound is not produced just by a DAC and a speaker, but also by interactions between the sound and its environment. Just because the speaker can produce 20kHz (not guaranteed a flat response to that frequency) doesn't mean that what your ears hear is 20kHz. It's 20kHz plus a lot of distortion caused by the speakers, enclosure, etc., not having a flat response at all. In fact, what one might believe is 20kHz might be lower due to harmonics caused by distortion (from the DAC to the filters to the analog amps, speaker, enclosure (computer if laptop)...
Pretty much the only way is a function generator connected to a pair of well-matched headphones whose transfer function is well characterised and behavior at high frequencies is known.
Perhaps. But if the information was there on the web page, then really, it's the liker's fault for making that information public.
The internet is a harsh mistress - because what separates it from life as we knew it is two things:
1) It never forgets Something you posted 20 years ago can come back today. Deleting the original doesn't guarantee destruction of many copies (see Streisand Effect). Very rarely, if at all, has human society ever experienced something like this.
2) It's global. What was something meant to be among friends is easily spread throughout the world
Combined together, everything one does on the Internet is basically logged, filed, classified, and avialable for lookup. Finding out who "liked" something is fairly easy. And from there, finding out more information on them because they made it public, even easier.
Digging out the employer can be quite easy by just Googling the person if it's part of their public profile. Sure making it even easier to see may be a dick move, but if it's publicly available online, I don't see the problem. Heck, stuff like that often crops up due to th Streisand effect.
IP address exhaustion isn't an issue, actually.
First, Verizon can get new IPs when it wants to - IANA hasn't actually run out of IPs for North American just yet. But it's irrelevant as smartphones don't need a live IP.
Services for wireless internet are heavily segregated. Why does a basic phone on a "social networking" plan need a real IP? It can be heavily proxied back and forth and no one would know the difference (or care).
A smartphone ditto - sure it needs AN IP, but it doesn't mean you can't go through layers of NAT, firewalls and transparent proxies that help compress data and make sites load faster (verizon DOES do this). Similarly, people who use those mobile hotspots are similar - they're already behind a NAT, so NATing them isn't an issue at all. Probalby no proxy, and probably just a basic firewall. Heck, even the mobile sticks probably get the same as well.
If you want raw unfiltered unfirewalled access, you need to get the top-tier expensive data plan that gives you it (usually marketed as "VPN" because stuff like IPSec don't handle NAT nicely). A raw IP with complete access to the Internet.
LIfe under IPv6 won't be much different. Proxies, firewalls, maybe no NAT but the IPv6 router controlling it all. One thing that makes life simple though is since they practically have ot use DHCPv6 (why waste bandwidth with router advertisements and stuff?), your plan determines your prefix, and the gateway routers can easily use that to filter your access appropriately.
Most modern malware exist in userland these days because it's the most effective and still does what you want.
First, userland hacks will never trigger any sort of alert to authenticate, and most OSes support some way to start up automatically on login, also accessible by the user. Next, the malware can really do a lot of things - if you want access to user data, you got it, if you want to send spam, no admin required. If you want to DDoS some machine, ditto.
The infection vector is often manually installed onto vulnerable sites, but the payload can be run as a normal user in most circumstances. Sure, it's a lot harder to hide and any elevated application can nuke and kill them, so you have to counteract it by using plausible sounding executable names and making it so that each piece looks out of each other.
As long as security is taken without respect to Dancing Pigs, all users are vulnerable. It doesn't matter what OS you run - Windows, Linux, OS X, etc., or what permissions you run them at (admin only, user only), they're all vulnerable. Hell, people who buy shell accounts for Linux are often user-only and may get infected if they do much with it.
Not likely.
Apple's probably using hte iPad 2 as a production test platform. One that is relatively unimportant other than price point. The test here is a new fabrication process - things can go horrendously wrong still (poor yields, dies after 2 months, etc). Given the new iPad probably outsells the iPad 2 by a significant margin (I'd be surprised if the iPad 2 outsold Android tablets), it's the perfect way to test things. First there's a guaranteed fallback (so if it dies after 2 months, or poor yields mean you only get 10% of the number you expect, production can still continue). Next, it moves slow enough that even if there is a shortage, it would be brief and probably unnoticed - enough to switch production back to the old model.
It's just like when Apple did the Liquidmetal tests using the SIM ejection tool - it's something they can rapidly use another process for (e.g., steel), so they can test out new production methods without adversely affecting production.
When you're cranking stuff out by the millions, it takes a lot of careful analysis to minimize waste and production errors - they cost money. So low-volume, low-demand products make the perfect test platform to iron out production kinks.
There aren't any easy sources. iFixit had to specially comission a build - they CNC cut their own pentalobe screws. Their cheaper kits use a star screwdriver that improperly fits, but since it's a single use item, it's not a big deal (and it'll leave marks on the screw that a proper screwdriver won't). They reluctantly sell these things to the public.
Basically, if someone is willing to go through the trouble of sourcing a screwdriver and paying $30 for it (plus shipping), it's already a one up from someone who'll just take a knife to unscrew it (yes, I've seen that happen).
It's basically one of those "if you're doing this, you probalby know what you're doing" intelligence tests. A 5 lobe screwdriver is pretty hard to find to begin with, and those that'll go through the effort of procuring one, well, probably have the skills and know-how to do it.
If you're going to places like iFixit to get tools to repair stuff, that's already a huge step up in the skills game. Sure a skilled repairman could make the same mistake, but they're also far more attentive and if they're missing a screw or have parts left over, will probably investigate. There I Fixed It has some stunning examples of what people can do. (Unfortunately, it also contains some smart fixes as well, but the older entries are more interesting).
Exactly. Though, 100GB drives are plenty of storage for people. If you want to earn some brownie points at the next family gathering, you can stuff them in your parent's PC or something or get a small drive-less NAS appliance and use it as a backup server.
Doesn't cost much, but lots of brownie points and you ge tto fulfill that need to reuse old hardware. Especially the backup side - most likely they don't have a backup routine or schedule or something.
Or hell, maybe they've been complaining that their hard drive is full. Use it to upgrade their PC on the cheap. Or install a new version of Windows without wiping out the ability to use XP or something. Or stick on Ubuntu on it.
The common user will be thrilled to get a "big" hard drive for free. Use it to do best practices (backup), evangelize (install Linux), or just make them happy by having more space for their photos, whatever.
Except basketball today can still be played with baskets. Today's rules and everything, except the equipment from the late 19th century.
The only difference is that the game would slow down a bit as someone has to retrieve the ball from the basket after every successful shot. It's the only reason why the bottom was removed from the basket in the first place - to not have to stop play and have someone get on a ladder, climb up, retrieve ball, climb down, keep ladder, and restart play.
American football is completely different from the other football where most interactions with the ball involve feet (some involve hands and heads).
Actually, Woz built the blue box on his own. Jobs convinced him he could sell it for like $125 or so (it cost $25 to build). But those were really just the prankish college days. To found Apple, Woz had to hock his beloved HP calculator in order to buy the parts necessary to build the Apple 1.
Jobs and Woz were friends very early on (started in childhood).
Anyhow, I think the damage caused these days would be far less than in the 70s. Firstly, it seems deadtree is dying in favor of electronic media, and I'm sure anyone who can't find the deadtree can find billions of similar articles online, if not going to the official website and reading it there. In the 70s, magazines were timely and important sources of information. These days, not so much since the Internet is far faster at it.
That bus bar had better be pretty damn big cross-sectionally. 500A is a LOT of current. And if there's three, that's 750A. You better put that power supply at the bottom of the rack, because the IIR losses are huge (they grow with the square of the current - pass twice as much current, and the loss goes up 4 times).
Pretty much the only way to have racks of it is to make the roof and floor out of solid metal and weld the racks to both sides (IIR losses are huge at connection points). Hell, that's how welding works - high currents, low voltage. Any bit of dirt between the rack's bus bars and the power cable will weld them together over time, if not cause a fire due to heat.
Hell, the voltage drops are pretty big as well. 500A, if the connection points add 0.01 ohms, you're looking at 5V. (And using IIR, that's a good 250W of power lost). Get it under 0.001 ohms and you're looking at 25W dissipation in the connectors and still half a volt of drop, which is nearly 5% voltage drop.
There's a reason why telecoms use 48V, and why electrical towers run at hundreds of kilovolts. It's the best mix of voltage conversions and acceptable power losses. Or why datacenters have other voltages like 208V or 240V readily available - lower the current and the cables can be made much smaller.
Heck, even *CARS* are considering switching to a 48V system to be able to power everything.
Which is why when you do research, you employ a lot of modern technology. Such as a pencil/pen and paper. Or a photocopier. Or a computer/tablet/smartphone/etc. Using that equipment, you note down your source and any items that are interesting for citation and reference later.
Knowing the gist won't help you with your paper if it raises the "where did you get THAT?" comment (or, as we're fond of, [citation needed]).
If you're doing research, it's part of the whole research process, and if you know the gist, but cannot find the citation, then you have to dig through and find the thing (hope you took good notes). There's many reasons, but an important one is to ensure you didn't get the point wrong (very important) or miss out of any specific limitations.
That's a researcher's job to do this stuff - index their sources and previous papers and have them for citation. For general knowledge purpoees, sure the gist is fine. For serious work that builds on others, it's part of your job to not forget, which is why beyond pen/paper, there's actually specialized software meant ot help keep track of papers and notes.
Research is all about documentation - X comes about because of A, B, C, which are previous works, and D, which is something you just researched, so the combination of A, B, C and D produces X. If C was a source you forgot to cite, and there's no obvious way to see how C can be derived from A, B and D, well...