Generally speaking, economists will tell you that Free Trade and Globalization is a net gain from the perspective of both trading nations (that could be alternately groups of nations that play similar trade roles, or even two regions within an nation).
If they're being honest, (and you are hereby warned about politicians commenting on economics) they will also tell you that structural change is inevitable, and that there will be losers.
Jobs and industry will be forced to disappear when they discover they can't compete with equivalent or even just-good-enough products or services; provided those are offered at lower costs, because no-one can.
Usually what happens is there is even more wealth created because of the effect of the lower product/service costs to the rest of the economy (more efficiency, expense allocations can be shifted to other tools and resources, more players can enter a field when cost barriers are lowered, etc).
But, there will be job losses to provide a sobering foil to the net economic gain. Those jobs are held by individuals with families and all the rest. It's not an exaggeration to say that the benefits to the nation at large come on their backs.
Any politician who talks trade and won't acknowledge that up front is offering a one-sided perspective. The bottom line is somebody has to pay a personal price, but without it the economy as a whole suffers.
Where things get strange is that no-one is 100% Free Trade today, but might be 80% or whatever. So everybody more-or-less agrees they would like to be 100% someday, but it's all about who can get the most from now till then; negotiation of the terms of the change from protectionism to openness.
Agriculture, for example, is nowhere near free trade. Computer Code? All the way there. Obviously the grunt geek could have learned a little something from the Sugar lobby.
Economists say that if you're affected by a trade correction (ie if both outsourcing killed your job and it seems to be getting more common) you should search for a new line of work, and those that are fastest at that will end up best off.
"Where I live (college town), we have audio crossing signals for the blind. They are actually kinda nice, as you don't have to stare stupidly at the signal waiting for it to change. You can just chill and wait for the shrill beeping instead... "
Of course you do. We have them too (city of 220K; damn near every one is audio aided; you have to go out to the 'burbs to find some that aren't). But it's audio for the blind and lights for the deaf. The reporter quotes a traffic engineer who wants to spend money on audio for the deaf.
Semantics indeed. Of course I do know you can synthesize a subharmonic by studying the upper harmonics (lots of relatively inexpensive products do it now and have for a while); it certainly seems to be valuable as an error-correction mechanism.
I see now you were referring to a system that involves receivers that listen at higher than the fundamental (many times higher, to work right) and then reconstruct what must have been below. For some reason I though your original post was referring to a receiver that ignored those frequencies.
That either traffic engineers are mismanaging traffic, or city councils can be talked into anything, or reporters are morons.
From the San Mateo article linked in the story: "... "The city should also consider looking in audio crossing signals for the hearing impaired..." Victor said...."
It's all about the power with radar. So, it's unlikely that a chip that actually manages to get in the right bandwidth to work as radar with the available power it has available is going to have much output below that optimum. I would bet they are using whatever frequency that sits on top of the bell curve, and are happy to have it.
Transmit; listen; figure out the difference between what you heard and what you should have heard if it went on indefinitely (ie no relfection). Repeat, very quickly.
The listening part is already at it's limit as to finding small reflections, though, they're already a very, very small fraction of your transmitting power. That's where all the computing is taking place, where you put the software resources.
You mentioned harmonics; I think you misunderstand them a bit. They don't go both ways from the original frequency. You must listen at the same frequency as you transmit; if you listen at a harmonic above that frequency you might hear something at a much reduced level; if you listen at anything below your fundamental frequency (the transmit one) you hear...
Nothing.
There is no such thing as a harmonic below the fundamental.
Lowering the frequency in the transmitter means you need more power and it probably won't fit on a chip. If somehow you did try it with an existing chip, all that happens is you get even smaller levels of bounced signal power (you're transmitting less level because you're below the transmitter's optimum) which means even more difficulty listening for reflections.
By the way, diffusing reflections and therefore making an even smaller percentage of them bounce back to the reciever pretty much sums up the whole working theory behind stealth. If you think about it, each attempt to reduce your available reflected signal numbers and strength is like building stealth into your radar. That's like deliberately building bugs into your debugger.
Since virtually all (1) radar systems that can see more than a few metres still require large vacuum tube transmitters to work at all (power, power, power), I'd say this chip is pretty much state-of-the-art and I'd bet they're doing all they can with what we know how to make and what we physically can make right now.
(1) I'd say all (period) but I'm not privy to everything and governments do keep secrets. Perhaps some automotive-types that watch 10 feet for a parked car might be solid state, but so far as the ones I know about, they all still use a small transmitting tube. Solid State transmitters are coming; but this story is really about a breakthrough in making a SS radar at all.
An alternate title for the Sophos story might have been: One-Third of all Spam due to Windows Security Failures
Just a guess, but Canada's broadband penetration rate (2nd worldwide) and the usual number of Windows users found anywhere translates to their high ranking, in my humble opinion, due to trojan-related control of these unprotected boxen.
From the article: "... Our intelligence suggests that a large amount of spam originates in Russia, even though it appears at only number 28 in the chart. Hackers appear to be breaking into computers in other countries and sending out spam via 'infected' PCs," continued Cluley. "Some Trojan horses and worms allow spammers to take over third-party computers belonging to innocent parties, and use them for sending spam. More than 30 percent of the world's spam is sent from these compromised computers, underlining the need for a co-ordinated approach to spam and viruses."
You can't use protected work for commercial gain. Although there is some court definitions regarding samples, a brief clip of a protected song without accompaniment isn't a sample as usually defined.
It's somewhat analogous to your image in a photograph. I can take your photo and display it in a gallery as art, but I need you to sign a release if I print it in an ad and you are "identifiable"; which usually means prominently depicted as well (huge crowd scenes don't apply, but a photo of your family would).
There are exceptions to the photo rule if you are a public figure like a politician, but for the most part it's best to get the release if there's any doubt. The "any doubt" rule should apply to an ad, so assuming Eminem didn't make a mistake the suit will proceed (he may well not have the rights to commercial use in the first place to his own music).
My guess is the song was cleared, or supposed to be cleared, and either somebody screwed up and didn't do their job or they cleared it with someone who turns out not to have the rights. Although Apple is listed in the suit, the fault almost certainly lies with someone they hired to make the ad.
Just a guess here, but if they really were red/infared spectrum LEDs its more likely they are used to illuminate your face to be recorded by an infared camera. Most newer security cameras can switch from daylight to IR as light levels change.
True infared-only lamps appear totally black to humans, by the way, as does the filter over the camera lens. But it's also common to use near-infared systems that will glow/look red to us (they're cheaper).
I know a few people who have delved into the 3rd-party ATM business. Note to non-Canadians: by law the bank has to let authorized independents access the Interac system. You go through quite a bit of verification; it's no way to scam anyone.
The machines usually cost near $C 10K each, I suppose it's possible to buy one for half that used.
The hard parts are: You need a bunch to really make it worthwhile; one machine is too much trouble for the piddly returns you get. They don't hold much cash; you have to refill often and it's going to be out-of-order (read: out of money) a lot if it's in a high-demand location. Try the 7-11 or a local bar. You have to somehow get a good location; usually this means giving a half-cut to the owner of the business you put it in. Indoors, locked at night, basically. You have to have the cash to keep it full; you need a float of a couple grand a machine, minimum. More is better, saves trips to fill it up, but you can start with that and fill it twice a day if you have to, till you start making money. After you piece off your retail partner (for the location) you can gross 75cents a transaction. If it's really competitive (as it seems to be where I am) you might end up giving the store a buck to keep the machine on their premises. At 100 transactions a day, that's 75 bucks or less. A hundred transactions requires a float near 10K per machine, or alternately thrice-a-day refills. Now you know why you need to have a dozen or so to start; one machine is just as much trouble as 10, so you may as well make a full-time job of it. Most of your machines won't average that many transactions. A hundred a week is apparently more common (they're everywhere; and each new one siphons off some of your traffic). The guys I know recently sold them off; the two of them had 8 altogether. Too competitive, the damn things are everywhere and many bar owners, gas stations and convenience stores just buy their own and keep the whole buck-and-a-half. They didn't make a killing; but if you were really into it and got up to 20 machines the income would be enough to support a full-time person. Hardly lucrative, but an enterprising individual can do OK.
I always do this, although my method is a slight variation. I like it better, but people are free to try anything that works for them.
It's quite easy to do, and if you take the time to practice it each time you enter a PIN for a short while, it becomes second nature and you don't even need to think about it (leaving you free to scope out the area, the people around you, and yes, even look for cameras, as you should do at any ATM). I almost never have received a dialog about an incorrect PIN. Maybe it happened once (I've done this for years), but I can't remember any incidents of bad entries.
What I do is place more-or-less my whole hand on the keypad, with pretty much every finger and my thumb touching a key; and press the relevant numbers with different digits (fingers/thumb).
You hand barely moves when you do it right, and all the fingers, including the unused ones, kind of move a bit when you enter a number; it's really impossible to know which keys were pressed in which order. Try it.
"... Hopefully now that Dell is moving call centers back home again, better service is just around the corner...."
Hopefully this isn't your personal computer we're talking about. One of the cool things that happen when you actually read the news articles is you learn what the story is about. Tech Support for Dell is moving away from India for Corporate/Enterprise clients only. Consumers still go to Banaglore.
I mean there's nothing wrong with your definition. You just don't understand the terms and how they apply to science of various disciplines beyond the grade-10 "push a box" example. [quote] Energy Basics [snip]
VI. Power -The rate at which work can be done is also important when considering energy -Power is the work done per unit time -The unit of power is the watt -Power (watts) = Work (joules) / time (sec) -A common unit of energy build on the watt: 1 kilowatthour (kWh) is the amount of energy that would be delivered in 1 hour at the rate of 1 kilowatt. -Your electric bill is calculated as the number of kilowatthours x rate/kWh -For example, my electric bill: $7 basic chg + 0.01613/kWh fuel chg + 0.06306/kWh (1st 600 kWh) + 0.04465/kWh (rest) -Light bulbs are rated based on the amount of work done (or energy consumed) per unit time. An 80 watt bulb would consume twice as much energy (and if the same type of bulb deliver twice as much light) as a 40 watt bulb. [end quote]
" I'm in Canada (A former British colony and in the Commonwealth) and it's the same here, "
What this poster meant to say is he's from Ontario, probably Toronto (aka "the centre of the known universe"), and everyone he knows calls it Hydro, as in the companies Ontario Hydro and Hydro-Quebec.
The other half of the population in Canada (aka "savages") call it Power, just like it's commonly called in the US and the UK.
He is using a source of energy, and translating it into work.
The source of energy is clearly owned by an identifiable person or group. Therefore the use of that energy is actionable. The right-of-way that allows the powerline in the first place gives the power company further arguments to strengthen their position.
The amount of energy used is measurable. Therefore he could be billed for it. Need I go on?
A smart Power Company would probably like it all to just go away, because it raises the possibility of health issues, so making a big deal out of it probably isn't a good idea.
Then again, a smart law firm that senses an opportunity to bill a few hours might convince a gullible board to pursue it. There are plenty of reasonable arguments that could be offered to encourage them to re-affirm rights over the use of borrowed power in this fashion (even though those rights are well established already). Companies don't always do what is in their best interest.
If it becomes popular or more common (negating the value of shutting up about it) expect to see the lawyers get a call.
As a final note: consider that the actual means to use the power is irrelevant; just because it doesn't directly connect to the grid means nothing, now that it's proven it's not necessarily a prerequisite to using the energy in the first place. it's just a technical detail.
"... are security updates being made for Apple's 1997 OS? (honest question because i don't know)..."
That's an interesting question. 1997 is OS8; stable version is 8.6.1. Although it hasn't been updated for a while, the reason might surprise you.
It's rock-solid and has no inherent security issues; properly configured you can't break in.
There was even a contest (and I'm pretty sure it was an OS8 machine too) where they offered a cash prize, published the IP address, and continued to serve pages on the web while waiting for someone to read a 1-paragraph plain text file and tell them what it said. They logged 300,000 attempts in 6 months; nobody won.
Same with System 7x (released 1990) and OS9. All of them are more secure than OSX, to be honest.
I probably could have made it clearer that I only installed the critical updates, and probably a few others, but not much. I thought that's more-or-less what I said, but re-reading it I suppose I could have been more specific.
Still, for most of the ones I did install, there were I think about 5 or 6 (can't really remember how many, but the whole exercise took more than an hour) that had to be installed alone, before a group could be installed at once, as you mentioned. I do select all of 'em and only do the dependancy one first if Windows Update complains that I have to.
I just checked and I see 41 uninstalled updates and all but 8 of those are language packs. If I remember right I had to install about two dozen that were essential to making it reasonably secure; a couple of those were for IE which I assume you can't really get rid of because of WinUpdate itself.
Does Mozilla/Firebird/Firefox or one of the others run the update script if you navigate to the update page? I might have to check it out on some alternate browsers and see.
As to whether the updates are "as bad as I said they were" I suppose we can probably agree that it's just my opinion, but to tell you the truth as I see it whether it's 98 or XP, Microsoft's system is the most cumbersome, requires the most steps, and almost always requires a restart that on my hardware seems to take too long (600 Mhz P3/98 and 1Ghz Athlon/XP).
It's certainly not onerous by any means but even OS9 is pretty much as simple as OSX and at least in this area they're light years ahead of MS, and XP came out way after OS9.
After I click "check for updates" I have an answer on either OSX or OS9 (867Mhz G4) in about 5 seconds (all computers are on a shared DSL line), and previous updates are rolled into the latest version if it's for the OS itself, so even a clean install from a x.x.0 disk means just one needs to be installed.
",,, Mac OS X has a dumb little icon that leaps and jumps and bounces and begs for attention any time an update is ready...."
Doesn't do that on mine. Turn off automatic updating.
"... When the update applies itself and wants a reboot, your only options are "shutdown" and "restart." There's no "cancel" option...."
There's no "cancel" option because it's unnecessary. Just keep working. You can "re" boot tomorrow, like I do. (most updates dont' require a reboot at all, by the way. But if they do, fuggetaboutit. Get some work done).
I suppose you could sit there and watch the update progress. I don't; I launch all my apps first thing; one of them is software update. If one is available, I click to install, enter my password, and then do something else (there's one installing right now. Or maybe it's done. Who knows? Who cares? Use the damn computer, SW Update doesn't need any attention from you).
A check for security-relevant update should probably be part of a Linux admin's daily routine. Kernel updates can be ignored; there's no need to update a perfectly good Linux install just because you can. Rookie error.
As for Windows update, I did a clean install of Win98SE about 2 weeks ago. 61 updates required, though mercifully only about 24 were "critical". And yes, you do need to stop everything and reboot every time with that OS.
I use Linux, Windows 98 & XP and OSX every day. It gives you a little perspective.
" For all the people here talking smack about Microsoft... imagine some GPL code was found to be in Microsoft's code. You'd all be screaming for the GPL to be enforced... "
How?
As in how would we find out?
As in the vast majority of the source code (despite the leak) is still secret, and without an extraordinary turn of events (ie nothing is impossible, but some things are pretty damn unlikely) it's beyond the realm of the reasonably likely.
And if I understand your further comments, you'd like to keep it that way.
I didn't mention this in my original post, but for whatever reason you, I, the RIAA, Slashdot and media in general are emphasizing the uploading of music files in discussions about the issue.
If we agree that we're talking about the relevance and validity of a penalty here, consider:
If your son or daughter lends a store-bought CD to his friend at school knowing that it will be for creating a copied CD, that too is an incident of illegal sharing (not fair use; that requires the copier own the CD) that is also subject to the very same $125,000 penalty per incident.
Reasonable? Hell, it's not even a deterrent, which in my mind clearly shows that the penalty is so out-of-whack that no-one takes it seriously.
Not that we even need more arguments, but it's also a principle of just law that there be a reasonable expectation of prosecution and that the law is applied with equal vigor to combat transgressions.
Nobody gets nailed for this stuff by the authorities (and there are agents of Government who are charged with the duty to protect intellectual property rights and prosecute transgressions).
Cops see burned CDs on the seats of cars every day; and "Fair Use" means the onus is on the defendant to prove he is entitled to be exempt from an existing law based to a large extent on simple possession.
It is both shocking and dangerous that we have law based on the US Constitution no less, where it's enforcement is essentially ignored in the everyday business of the state.
Does Copyright still even belong in the US Constitution (it is inconceivable that there would not be law regarding copyright and trademark were it not), or does the current situation (to borrow a phrase from the Constitution of Canada) "bring justice into disrepute"?
You are correct; it's illegal and the RIAA have a right to defend the unauthorized use of their member's property.
To me the issue is the level of penalty; $125,000 per incident (not per song; per each time someone accessed the song). I think that was meant to dissuade commerical copying, but the RIAA are using it against individuals, and only individuals, some of whom the public would be very sympathetic towards.
A 12-year old kid (to use the now-cliche'd defendant) could easily find themselves facing hundreds of millions in penalties; all the RIAA has to prove is that 10 people shared a copy of one Brittany Spears song on the kid's Kazza folder and it's already $ 1.25 million. Some of the people they're going after probably are looking at a bill of about a half-billion dollars (5000 songs, shared just once each) or 10 times that (each song shared 10 times) or even more.
You can run a war for a day or three on that kind of money. Which citizen has that kind of scratch? Or how about $4.83 Billion? That's Sony Music's annual revenue (2003). Given that I'd be pleased as punch with a 10% profit margin (Sony is bleeding red ink from every aspect of it's operations, not just music), am I supposed to believe that a fine levied against one prolific music sharer can equal the potential net profit of a huge music company? Why print the CDs at all?
I'd just leave the damn masters laying around the studios at night and wait for some sucker to upload 'em to Kazza. Sure beats all that manufacturing and advertising bullshit, and I'm guaranteed a profit? Count me in.
When the punishment does not fit the crime, and the RIAA uses the threat of onerous punishment to elict a quick settlement, it raises some questions that I think should be answered.
"... Your example for instance, about the Indian in the U.S., why does it have to be an Indian in the U.S?..."
Because if he is in India he's working at fair market value, so it's not dumping. Remember the question he posed in his post: " How is this not like price dumping? "
"... but the government then subsidized that service to be 'sold' cheaper to other countries..."
I don't understand what you're talking about here. Dumping is done by public companies without any money from their governments.
Subsidies are another matter entirely and are, by the way, comparatively easy to prove while Dumping is difficult. Are you saying the Government of India subsidizes the wages of programmers? I'd need to see something to back that up, if you have it.
Fair wages are simply the prevailing local wages; they will tend to be high enough to attract a sufficient number of qualified workers but no more. From most accounts, US firms operating in places like India tend to establish pay at a rate that is just a bit higher than the local averages for similar work.
I don't really see what the caste system has to do with outsourcing. If by some miracle there is a shortage of skilled workers in a country with 150 million post-secondary educated workers, then companies will lobby to end the caste system to allow more people to take higher education.
Until then, that kind of revolution will have to be up to the other forces of social change in India.
Outsourcing is very different from run-of-the-mill trade issues; under our current concept of free and fair trade it's perfectly OK.
Whether that needs to be addressed is certainly worth discussing, but I wouldn't be holding my breath.
Neither Business nor Government like it when there's a skill shortage and both are pretty much OK with a little unemployment in the IT sector.
Remember it was the IT worker shortage of a couple of years ago that got companies looking to India in the first place; without that they probably wouldn't have bothered to begin with.
No. I'm not trying to argue anything in you post (it's obviously cheaper to hire in India) but dumping refers to a specific example of unfair competition.
It's naturally confused by politics where industries make accusations and try to get trade relief, but keep in mind these accusations are only heard in the domestic market, where the truth isn't so important (and unfair accusations are unlikely to be refuted).
Essentially it's selling a product in an export market for less than you sell it for in your domestic market, in order to increase exports or maintain an industry. It also implies (but doesn't necessarily require) that you are selling in the export market for less than the cost to produce the goods.
Japan is very good at dumping, but every nation does it when the economy goes a little sour, because of the following reason:
Consider that it's common everywhere to keep a plant open and sell at a loss because it's cheaper than shutting down the plant completely; certain costs (taxes, heat, maintenance, loan repayments) remain but if you shut down you have zero sales to support paying them. There is a point where shutdown is viable, but it's not just because you might be losing a bit of money per sale.
So, when a market is very competitive or sales are in a downturn, some industries will try to sell excess product at a loss to other nations, and maintain operations so that they can take advantage of the expected upturn. It's almost like the old joke: "I am selling at a loss but making it up in volume."
It is also very common where you have a "strategic industry" like steel. No country is willing to let it's steel industry decline because it is critically important to the rest of the economy and to wage war, so steel is perhaps the most common commodity to be both dumped and unfairly accused of dumping. Every steel-producing nation has done both, at different times.
Note that dumping does not mean selling your product for less than that foreign market's domestic cost of production; if you are making a profit at your lower price that is not dumping, that's commerce (even though it won't be appreciated by the export market's domestic producer, and they will almost certainly accuse you of dumping for political reasons).
It doesn't really apply to people; dumping is pretty much impossible with wages if there are any labor laws to be heeded.
The example of dumping, as applied to programmers, would be:
Given that you can get paid perhaps $300 a month for coding in India, it would be dumping if you could hire an Indian Programmer working for an Indian company who is paid $300 a month but residing in the US and hired out to US firms at $200 a month.
Now, that's not to say there are no similarities between Outsourcing and Dumping; your comment is insightful and thought provoking. It's just not technically correct to say they are the same thing.
Another story about marketshare. Maybe it's only me, but I find the constant micro-battles about market share to be just a little on the boring side.
However, what instantly caught my attention with this story is this: IDG is essentially predicting that *NIX desktop OS's will grow to about a 10% share in a couple of years, and with two mature versions driving the increase, which has both momentum and is predicted to continue growing versus Microsoft's offerings.
Methinks you have never looked at an advanced Database Solution, or have misconceptions as to what they are. QuickBooks is simply a specialized, limited, and proprietary version of everyone's flexible database solution, which can be deployed to handle virtually any business application, from CRM to Shipping; Inventory Management; Personnel and Recruiting; to Web Sales and Catalogs.
Yes, you have to build it yourself (or do what most people do, which is to hire someone to build it to your spec or purchase a ready-made solution designed for your business sector). Whether they use MS Access. FileMaker Pro or GNUcash, that's what most businesses do.
I'm not particularly familiar with the Linux solutions, but having said that most database applications do pretty much the same things; it's a very mature field.
I am quite familiar with Filemaker Pro, and all the functions you mentioned in your reply are available for FileMaker; a plugin enables instant credit card validation and approval, for example; and server/client versions allow real-time entry of all customer and internal data.
Like I said, if you want to use an off-the-shelf solution, fine. But you asked whether QuickBooks could be replaced by a Linux solution, and the answer is quite clearly yes, and happens every day.
Mentioned in the US Global Terrorism Reports
on
Canadian Privacy Act
·
· Score: 1
The US has consistently criticized Canada's Privacy Act in each of the last 2 Global Terrorism Reports published annually by the State Department and presented to Congress, although the criticism in the 2003 report is muted compared to earlier versions.
" US law-enforcement officers have expressed concern that Canadian privacy laws... inhibit a fuller and more timely exchange of information and response to requests for assistance. Also, Canadian laws and regulations intended to protect Canadian citizens and landed immigrants from Government intrusion sometimes limit the depth of investigations. "
Patterns Of Global Terrorism, Western Hemisphere Report, US State Department; April 30 2003; page 11
Slashdot Mirror
Generally speaking, economists will tell you that Free Trade and Globalization is a net gain from the perspective of both trading nations (that could be alternately groups of nations that play similar trade roles, or even two regions within an nation).
If they're being honest, (and you are hereby warned about politicians commenting on economics) they will also tell you that structural change is inevitable, and that there will be losers.
Jobs and industry will be forced to disappear when they discover they can't compete with equivalent or even just-good-enough products or services; provided those are offered at lower costs, because no-one can.
Usually what happens is there is even more wealth created because of the effect of the lower product/service costs to the rest of the economy (more efficiency, expense allocations can be shifted to other tools and resources, more players can enter a field when cost barriers are lowered, etc).
But, there will be job losses to provide a sobering foil to the net economic gain. Those jobs are held by individuals with families and all the rest. It's not an exaggeration to say that the benefits to the nation at large come on their backs.
Any politician who talks trade and won't acknowledge that up front is offering a one-sided perspective. The bottom line is somebody has to pay a personal price, but without it the economy as a whole suffers.
Where things get strange is that no-one is 100% Free Trade today, but might be 80% or whatever. So everybody more-or-less agrees they would like to be 100% someday, but it's all about who can get the most from now till then; negotiation of the terms of the change from protectionism to openness.
Agriculture, for example, is nowhere near free trade. Computer Code? All the way there. Obviously the grunt geek could have learned a little something from the Sugar lobby.
Economists say that if you're affected by a trade correction (ie if both outsourcing killed your job and it seems to be getting more common) you should search for a new line of work, and those that are fastest at that will end up best off.
"Where I live (college town), we have audio crossing signals for the blind. They are actually kinda nice, as you don't have to stare stupidly at the signal waiting for it to change. You can just chill and wait for the shrill beeping instead... "
Of course you do. We have them too (city of 220K; damn near every one is audio aided; you have to go out to the 'burbs to find some that aren't). But it's audio for the blind and lights for the deaf. The reporter quotes a traffic engineer who wants to spend money on audio for the deaf.
Very interesting stuff, that.
Semantics indeed. Of course I do know you can synthesize a subharmonic by studying the upper harmonics (lots of relatively inexpensive products do it now and have for a while); it certainly seems to be valuable as an error-correction mechanism.
I see now you were referring to a system that involves receivers that listen at higher than the fundamental (many times higher, to work right) and then reconstruct what must have been below. For some reason I though your original post was referring to a receiver that ignored those frequencies.
Very interesting work you do.
That either traffic engineers are mismanaging traffic, or city councils can be talked into anything, or reporters are morons.
... "The city should also consider looking in audio crossing signals for the hearing impaired ..." Victor said. ..."
From the San Mateo article linked in the story:
"
What's next? Traffic lights for the blind?
It's all about the power with radar. So, it's unlikely that a chip that actually manages to get in the right bandwidth to work as radar with the available power it has available is going to have much output below that optimum. I would bet they are using whatever frequency that sits on top of the bell curve, and are happy to have it.
...
Transmit; listen; figure out the difference between what you heard and what you should have heard if it went on indefinitely (ie no relfection). Repeat, very quickly.
The listening part is already at it's limit as to finding small reflections, though, they're already a very, very small fraction of your transmitting power. That's where all the computing is taking place, where you put the software resources.
You mentioned harmonics; I think you misunderstand them a bit. They don't go both ways from the original frequency. You must listen at the same frequency as you transmit; if you listen at a harmonic above that frequency you might hear something at a much reduced level; if you listen at anything below your fundamental frequency (the transmit one) you hear
Nothing.
There is no such thing as a harmonic below the fundamental.
Lowering the frequency in the transmitter means you need more power and it probably won't fit on a chip. If somehow you did try it with an existing chip, all that happens is you get even smaller levels of bounced signal power (you're transmitting less level because you're below the transmitter's optimum) which means even more difficulty listening for reflections.
By the way, diffusing reflections and therefore making an even smaller percentage of them bounce back to the reciever pretty much sums up the whole working theory behind stealth. If you think about it, each attempt to reduce your available reflected signal numbers and strength is like building stealth into your radar. That's like deliberately building bugs into your debugger.
Since virtually all (1) radar systems that can see more than a few metres still require large vacuum tube transmitters to work at all (power, power, power), I'd say this chip is pretty much state-of-the-art and I'd bet they're doing all they can with what we know how to make and what we physically can make right now.
(1) I'd say all (period) but I'm not privy to everything and governments do keep secrets. Perhaps some automotive-types that watch 10 feet for a parked car might be solid state, but so far as the ones I know about, they all still use a small transmitting tube. Solid State transmitters are coming; but this story is really about a breakthrough in making a SS radar at all.
An alternate title for the Sophos story might have been:
... Our intelligence suggests that a large amount of spam originates in Russia, even though it appears at only number 28 in the chart. Hackers appear to be breaking into computers in other countries and sending out spam via 'infected' PCs," continued Cluley. "Some Trojan horses and worms allow spammers to take over third-party computers belonging to innocent parties, and use them for sending spam. More than 30 percent of the world's spam is sent from these compromised computers, underlining the need for a co-ordinated approach to spam and viruses."
One-Third of all Spam due to Windows Security Failures
Just a guess, but Canada's broadband penetration rate (2nd worldwide) and the usual number of Windows users found anywhere translates to their high ranking, in my humble opinion, due to trojan-related control of these unprotected boxen.
From the article:
"
You can't use protected work for commercial gain. Although there is some court definitions regarding samples, a brief clip of a protected song without accompaniment isn't a sample as usually defined.
It's somewhat analogous to your image in a photograph. I can take your photo and display it in a gallery as art, but I need you to sign a release if I print it in an ad and you are "identifiable"; which usually means prominently depicted as well (huge crowd scenes don't apply, but a photo of your family would).
There are exceptions to the photo rule if you are a public figure like a politician, but for the most part it's best to get the release if there's any doubt. The "any doubt" rule should apply to an ad, so assuming Eminem didn't make a mistake the suit will proceed (he may well not have the rights to commercial use in the first place to his own music).
My guess is the song was cleared, or supposed to be cleared, and either somebody screwed up and didn't do their job or they cleared it with someone who turns out not to have the rights. Although Apple is listed in the suit, the fault almost certainly lies with someone they hired to make the ad.
Just a guess here, but if they really were red/infared spectrum LEDs its more likely they are used to illuminate your face to be recorded by an infared camera. Most newer security cameras can switch from daylight to IR as light levels change.
True infared-only lamps appear totally black to humans, by the way, as does the filter over the camera lens. But it's also common to use near-infared systems that will glow/look red to us (they're cheaper).
I know a few people who have delved into the 3rd-party ATM business. Note to non-Canadians: by law the bank has to let authorized independents access the Interac system. You go through quite a bit of verification; it's no way to scam anyone.
The machines usually cost near $C 10K each, I suppose it's possible to buy one for half that used.
The hard parts are:
You need a bunch to really make it worthwhile; one machine is too much trouble for the piddly returns you get.
They don't hold much cash; you have to refill often and it's going to be out-of-order (read: out of money) a lot if it's in a high-demand location. Try the 7-11 or a local bar.
You have to somehow get a good location; usually this means giving a half-cut to the owner of the business you put it in. Indoors, locked at night, basically.
You have to have the cash to keep it full; you need a float of a couple grand a machine, minimum. More is better, saves trips to fill it up, but you can start with that and fill it twice a day if you have to, till you start making money.
After you piece off your retail partner (for the location) you can gross 75cents a transaction. If it's really competitive (as it seems to be where I am) you might end up giving the store a buck to keep the machine on their premises. At 100 transactions a day, that's 75 bucks or less. A hundred transactions requires a float near 10K per machine, or alternately thrice-a-day refills. Now you know why you need to have a dozen or so to start; one machine is just as much trouble as 10, so you may as well make a full-time job of it.
Most of your machines won't average that many transactions. A hundred a week is apparently more common (they're everywhere; and each new one siphons off some of your traffic).
The guys I know recently sold them off; the two of them had 8 altogether. Too competitive, the damn things are everywhere and many bar owners, gas stations and convenience stores just buy their own and keep the whole buck-and-a-half.
They didn't make a killing; but if you were really into it and got up to 20 machines the income would be enough to support a full-time person. Hardly lucrative, but an enterprising individual can do OK.
I always do this, although my method is a slight variation. I like it better, but people are free to try anything that works for them.
It's quite easy to do, and if you take the time to practice it each time you enter a PIN for a short while, it becomes second nature and you don't even need to think about it (leaving you free to scope out the area, the people around you, and yes, even look for cameras, as you should do at any ATM). I almost never have received a dialog about an incorrect PIN. Maybe it happened once (I've done this for years), but I can't remember any incidents of bad entries.
What I do is place more-or-less my whole hand on the keypad, with pretty much every finger and my thumb touching a key; and press the relevant numbers with different digits (fingers/thumb).
You hand barely moves when you do it right, and all the fingers, including the unused ones, kind of move a bit when you enter a number; it's really impossible to know which keys were pressed in which order. Try it.
" ... Hopefully now that Dell is moving call centers back home again, better service is just around the corner. ..."
Hopefully this isn't your personal computer we're talking about. One of the cool things that happen when you actually read the news articles is you learn what the story is about. Tech Support for Dell is moving away from India for Corporate/Enterprise clients only. Consumers still go to Banaglore.
Say what?
I mean there's nothing wrong with your definition. You just don't understand the terms and how they apply to science of various disciplines beyond the grade-10 "push a box" example.
[quote]
Energy Basics
[snip]
VI. Power
-The rate at which work can be done is also important when considering energy
-Power is the work done per unit time
-The unit of power is the watt
-Power (watts) = Work (joules) / time (sec)
-A common unit of energy build on the watt:
1 kilowatthour (kWh) is the amount of energy that would be delivered in 1 hour at the rate of 1 kilowatt.
-Your electric bill is calculated as the number of kilowatthours x rate/kWh
-For example, my electric bill:
$7 basic chg + 0.01613/kWh fuel chg + 0.06306/kWh (1st 600 kWh) + 0.04465/kWh (rest)
-Light bulbs are rated based on the amount of work done (or energy consumed) per unit time. An 80 watt bulb would consume twice as much energy (and if the same type of bulb deliver twice as much light) as a 40 watt bulb.
[end quote]
(c) George Mason University
http://mason.gmu.edu/~rcjones/110energylec1.PDF
" I'm in Canada (A former British colony and in the Commonwealth) and it's the same here, "
What this poster meant to say is he's from Ontario, probably Toronto (aka "the centre of the known universe"), and everyone he knows calls it Hydro, as in the companies Ontario Hydro and Hydro-Quebec.
The other half of the population in Canada (aka "savages") call it Power, just like it's commonly called in the US and the UK.
He is using a source of energy, and translating it into work.
The source of energy is clearly owned by an identifiable person or group. Therefore the use of that energy is actionable. The right-of-way that allows the powerline in the first place gives the power company further arguments to strengthen their position.
The amount of energy used is measurable. Therefore he could be billed for it. Need I go on?
A smart Power Company would probably like it all to just go away, because it raises the possibility of health issues, so making a big deal out of it probably isn't a good idea.
Then again, a smart law firm that senses an opportunity to bill a few hours might convince a gullible board to pursue it. There are plenty of reasonable arguments that could be offered to encourage them to re-affirm rights over the use of borrowed power in this fashion (even though those rights are well established already). Companies don't always do what is in their best interest.
If it becomes popular or more common (negating the value of shutting up about it) expect to see the lawyers get a call.
As a final note: consider that the actual means to use the power is irrelevant; just because it doesn't directly connect to the grid means nothing, now that it's proven it's not necessarily a prerequisite to using the energy in the first place. it's just a technical detail.
" ... are security updates being made for Apple's 1997 OS? (honest question because i don't know) ..."
That's an interesting question. 1997 is OS8; stable version is 8.6.1. Although it hasn't been updated for a while, the reason might surprise you.
It's rock-solid and has no inherent security issues; properly configured you can't break in.
There was even a contest (and I'm pretty sure it was an OS8 machine too) where they offered a cash prize, published the IP address, and continued to serve pages on the web while waiting for someone to read a 1-paragraph plain text file and tell them what it said. They logged 300,000 attempts in 6 months; nobody won.
Same with System 7x (released 1990) and OS9. All of them are more secure than OSX, to be honest.
I probably could have made it clearer that I only installed the critical updates, and probably a few others, but not much. I thought that's more-or-less what I said, but re-reading it I suppose I could have been more specific.
Still, for most of the ones I did install, there were I think about 5 or 6 (can't really remember how many, but the whole exercise took more than an hour) that had to be installed alone, before a group could be installed at once, as you mentioned. I do select all of 'em and only do the dependancy one first if Windows Update complains that I have to.
I just checked and I see 41 uninstalled updates and all but 8 of those are language packs. If I remember right I had to install about two dozen that were essential to making it reasonably secure; a couple of those were for IE which I assume you can't really get rid of because of WinUpdate itself.
Does Mozilla/Firebird/Firefox or one of the others run the update script if you navigate to the update page? I might have to check it out on some alternate browsers and see.
As to whether the updates are "as bad as I said they were" I suppose we can probably agree that it's just my opinion, but to tell you the truth as I see it whether it's 98 or XP, Microsoft's system is the most cumbersome, requires the most steps, and almost always requires a restart that on my hardware seems to take too long (600 Mhz P3/98 and 1Ghz Athlon/XP).
It's certainly not onerous by any means but even OS9 is pretty much as simple as OSX and at least in this area they're light years ahead of MS, and XP came out way after OS9.
After I click "check for updates" I have an answer on either OSX or OS9 (867Mhz G4) in about 5 seconds (all computers are on a shared DSL line), and previous updates are rolled into the latest version if it's for the OS itself, so even a clean install from a x.x.0 disk means just one needs to be installed.
" ,,, Mac OS X has a dumb little icon that leaps and jumps and bounces and begs for attention any time an update is ready. ..."
... When the update applies itself and wants a reboot, your only options are "shutdown" and "restart." There's no "cancel" option. ..."
Doesn't do that on mine. Turn off automatic updating.
"
There's no "cancel" option because it's unnecessary. Just keep working. You can "re" boot tomorrow, like I do. (most updates dont' require a reboot at all, by the way. But if they do, fuggetaboutit. Get some work done).
I suppose you could sit there and watch the update progress. I don't; I launch all my apps first thing; one of them is software update. If one is available, I click to install, enter my password, and then do something else (there's one installing right now. Or maybe it's done. Who knows? Who cares? Use the damn computer, SW Update doesn't need any attention from you).
A check for security-relevant update should probably be part of a Linux admin's daily routine. Kernel updates can be ignored; there's no need to update a perfectly good Linux install just because you can. Rookie error.
As for Windows update, I did a clean install of Win98SE about 2 weeks ago. 61 updates required, though mercifully only about 24 were "critical". And yes, you do need to stop everything and reboot every time with that OS.
I use Linux, Windows 98 & XP and OSX every day. It gives you a little perspective.
" For all the people here talking smack about Microsoft ... imagine some GPL code was found to be in Microsoft's code. You'd all be screaming for the GPL to be enforced ... "
How?
As in how would we find out?
As in the vast majority of the source code (despite the leak) is still secret, and without an extraordinary turn of events (ie nothing is impossible, but some things are pretty damn unlikely) it's beyond the realm of the reasonably likely.
And if I understand your further comments, you'd like to keep it that way.
Well said.
I didn't mention this in my original post, but for whatever reason you, I, the RIAA, Slashdot and media in general are emphasizing the uploading of music files in discussions about the issue.
If we agree that we're talking about the relevance and validity of a penalty here, consider:
If your son or daughter lends a store-bought CD to his friend at school knowing that it will be for creating a copied CD, that too is an incident of illegal sharing (not fair use; that requires the copier own the CD) that is also subject to the very same $125,000 penalty per incident.
Reasonable? Hell, it's not even a deterrent, which in my mind clearly shows that the penalty is so out-of-whack that no-one takes it seriously.
Not that we even need more arguments, but it's also a principle of just law that there be a reasonable expectation of prosecution and that the law is applied with equal vigor to combat transgressions.
Nobody gets nailed for this stuff by the authorities (and there are agents of Government who are charged with the duty to protect intellectual property rights and prosecute transgressions).
Cops see burned CDs on the seats of cars every day; and "Fair Use" means the onus is on the defendant to prove he is entitled to be exempt from an existing law based to a large extent on simple possession.
It is both shocking and dangerous that we have law based on the US Constitution no less, where it's enforcement is essentially ignored in the everyday business of the state.
Does Copyright still even belong in the US Constitution (it is inconceivable that there would not be law regarding copyright and trademark were it not), or does the current situation (to borrow a phrase from the Constitution of Canada) "bring justice into disrepute"?
You are correct; it's illegal and the RIAA have a right to defend the unauthorized use of their member's property.
To me the issue is the level of penalty; $125,000 per incident (not per song; per each time someone accessed the song).
I think that was meant to dissuade commerical copying, but the RIAA are using it against individuals, and only individuals, some of whom the public would be very sympathetic towards.
A 12-year old kid (to use the now-cliche'd defendant) could easily find themselves facing hundreds of millions in penalties; all the RIAA has to prove is that 10 people shared a copy of one Brittany Spears song on the kid's Kazza folder and it's already $ 1.25 million. Some of the people they're going after probably are looking at a bill of about a half-billion dollars (5000 songs, shared just once each) or 10 times that (each song shared 10 times) or even more.
You can run a war for a day or three on that kind of money. Which citizen has that kind of scratch? Or how about $4.83 Billion? That's Sony Music's annual revenue (2003). Given that I'd be pleased as punch with a 10% profit margin (Sony is bleeding red ink from every aspect of it's operations, not just music), am I supposed to believe that a fine levied against one prolific music sharer can equal the potential net profit of a huge music company? Why print the CDs at all?
I'd just leave the damn masters laying around the studios at night and wait for some sucker to upload 'em to Kazza. Sure beats all that manufacturing and advertising bullshit, and I'm guaranteed a profit? Count me in.
When the punishment does not fit the crime, and the RIAA uses the threat of onerous punishment to elict a quick settlement, it raises some questions that I think should be answered.
If answering them requires a lawsuit, so be it.
" ... Your example for instance, about the Indian in the U.S., why does it have to be an Indian in the U.S? ..."
..."
Because if he is in India he's working at fair market value, so it's not dumping. Remember the question he posed in his post: " How is this not like price dumping? "
"... but the government then subsidized that service to be 'sold' cheaper to other countries
I don't understand what you're talking about here. Dumping is done by public companies without any money from their governments.
Subsidies are another matter entirely and are, by the way, comparatively easy to prove while Dumping is difficult. Are you saying the Government of India subsidizes the wages of programmers? I'd need to see something to back that up, if you have it.
Fair wages are simply the prevailing local wages; they will tend to be high enough to attract a sufficient number of qualified workers but no more. From most accounts, US firms operating in places like India tend to establish pay at a rate that is just a bit higher than the local averages for similar work.
I don't really see what the caste system has to do with outsourcing. If by some miracle there is a shortage of skilled workers in a country with 150 million post-secondary educated workers, then companies will lobby to end the caste system to allow more people to take higher education.
Until then, that kind of revolution will have to be up to the other forces of social change in India.
Outsourcing is very different from run-of-the-mill trade issues; under our current concept of free and fair trade it's perfectly OK.
Whether that needs to be addressed is certainly worth discussing, but I wouldn't be holding my breath.
Neither Business nor Government like it when there's a skill shortage and both are pretty much OK with a little unemployment in the IT sector.
Remember it was the IT worker shortage of a couple of years ago that got companies looking to India in the first place; without that they probably wouldn't have bothered to begin with.
No. I'm not trying to argue anything in you post (it's obviously cheaper to hire in India) but dumping refers to a specific example of unfair competition.
It's naturally confused by politics where industries make accusations and try to get trade relief, but keep in mind these accusations are only heard in the domestic market, where the truth isn't so important (and unfair accusations are unlikely to be refuted).
Essentially it's selling a product in an export market for less than you sell it for in your domestic market, in order to increase exports or maintain an industry. It also implies (but doesn't necessarily require) that you are selling in the export market for less than the cost to produce the goods.
Japan is very good at dumping, but every nation does it when the economy goes a little sour, because of the following reason:
Consider that it's common everywhere to keep a plant open and sell at a loss because it's cheaper than shutting down the plant completely; certain costs (taxes, heat, maintenance, loan repayments) remain but if you shut down you have zero sales to support paying them. There is a point where shutdown is viable, but it's not just because you might be losing a bit of money per sale.
So, when a market is very competitive or sales are in a downturn, some industries will try to sell excess product at a loss to other nations, and maintain operations so that they can take advantage of the expected upturn. It's almost like the old joke: "I am selling at a loss but making it up in volume."
It is also very common where you have a "strategic industry" like steel. No country is willing to let it's steel industry decline because it is critically important to the rest of the economy and to wage war, so steel is perhaps the most common commodity to be both dumped and unfairly accused of dumping. Every steel-producing nation has done both, at different times.
Note that dumping does not mean selling your product for less than that foreign market's domestic cost of production; if you are making a profit at your lower price that is not dumping, that's commerce (even though it won't be appreciated by the export market's domestic producer, and they will almost certainly accuse you of dumping for political reasons).
It doesn't really apply to people; dumping is pretty much impossible with wages if there are any labor laws to be heeded.
The example of dumping, as applied to programmers, would be:
Given that you can get paid perhaps $300 a month for coding in India, it would be dumping if you could hire an Indian Programmer working for an Indian company who is paid $300 a month but residing in the US and hired out to US firms at $200 a month.
Now, that's not to say there are no similarities between Outsourcing and Dumping; your comment is insightful and thought provoking. It's just not technically correct to say they are the same thing.
Another story about marketshare. Maybe it's only me, but I find the constant micro-battles about market share to be just a little on the boring side.
However, what instantly caught my attention with this story is this: IDG is essentially predicting that *NIX desktop OS's will grow to about a 10% share in a couple of years, and with two mature versions driving the increase, which has both momentum and is predicted to continue growing versus Microsoft's offerings.
Now that's news.
Methinks you have never looked at an advanced Database Solution, or have misconceptions as to what they are. QuickBooks is simply a specialized, limited, and proprietary version of everyone's flexible database solution, which can be deployed to handle virtually any business application, from CRM to Shipping; Inventory Management; Personnel and Recruiting; to Web Sales and Catalogs.
Yes, you have to build it yourself (or do what most people do, which is to hire someone to build it to your spec or purchase a ready-made solution designed for your business sector). Whether they use MS Access. FileMaker Pro or GNUcash, that's what most businesses do.
I'm not particularly familiar with the Linux solutions, but having said that most database applications do pretty much the same things; it's a very mature field.
I am quite familiar with Filemaker Pro, and all the functions you mentioned in your reply are available for FileMaker; a plugin enables instant credit card validation and approval, for example; and server/client versions allow real-time entry of all customer and internal data.
Like I said, if you want to use an off-the-shelf solution, fine. But you asked whether QuickBooks could be replaced by a Linux solution, and the answer is quite clearly yes, and happens every day.
The US has consistently criticized Canada's Privacy Act in each of the last 2 Global Terrorism Reports published annually by the State Department and presented to Congress, although the criticism in the 2003 report is muted compared to earlier versions.
... inhibit a fuller and more timely exchange of information and response to requests for assistance. Also, Canadian laws and regulations intended to protect Canadian citizens and landed immigrants from Government intrusion sometimes limit the depth of investigations. "
" US law-enforcement officers have expressed concern that Canadian privacy laws
Patterns Of Global Terrorism, Western Hemisphere Report, US State Department; April 30 2003; page 11