Hang on a second. All wireless clients I've see do not automatically connect to an SSID unless its already set up in the wireless profile. The only way I could see the scenario you describe possibly happening is if you and your neighbor had matching SSIDs. Did it occur to you to change yours?
Before everyone goes spouting off about how we're becoming a police state, has anyone (including submitter) bothered to read the linked police report? The cop refers to "prior negative contacts" with this person for both him and the administration. The chick ignores the teachers, lies to the cops, and brazenly continues to text in class. It's too bad the cops had to waste cycles getting involved, but judging from the police report the school personnel were at the end of their rope.
I'm still up in their air as to whether Moller's creation is going to get legs, but you can't really compare what he's doing to a Harrier. Moller's Skycar uses fans powered by rotary engines, NOT vectored thrust from a turbofan like the Harrier does, so there's no surface blistering.
As far as the public being "too stupid" to own flying cars, they were saying much the same things about those novel playthings if the rich, the horseless carriage, when they first started rolling out. Too complicated, too expensive, and too difficult to operate for the average person, they said. Until Henry Ford came along, that is.
I contend that not only will flying cars happen, they are inevitable. In our lifetimes though? That's another story. The biggest hurdle is that the air traffic control system is set up a certain way that doesn't facilitate controlled skylanes. Training, enforcement, where to take off and land, systems to deal with IFR conditions, computer guidance, etc are all factors that need to come into play to make it happen. The FAA is the biggest hurdle to all of this, and if anything will kill the flying car for the foreseeable future, it's them.
Your entire argument is based on IF the owner had his contact details hidden, which we don't know because of the smattering of info we've received in the OP. It's no secret that there are all sorts of bots trolling through WHOIS databases for email addresses, either, and we know from the Nigerian 419 scams that there are armies of con artists trying to shake people down via unsolicited transactions. Why am I the only guy in this entire thread who thinks the solicitor may not be acting in good faith? Am I missing something here?
Personally, I would be more inclined to keep the domain and ignore the email. The bottom line is you got an unsolicited message from from some schmoe who provided you with very few details - It looks like a bulk email to me and smells strongly of a scam.
Here take a look at this. It could be this scam adapted to domain names. If you REALLY want to take a chance on this guy, get the money wired or make damn sure anything he sends you clears before you lift a finger. This is particularly true if the numbers he's talking are too-good-to-be-true amounts.
I don't buy into this theory that everyone's going to move into urban areas because of gas prices. There are too many people, too much existing infrastructure, and too much cultural momentum behind the idea of owning your own home for people pull up their stakes and start living on top of each other in tiny apartments.
Market forces will keep people pushed out to the fringes - If a large number of people do move towards the city, it will have the effect of driving up real estate prices and rents. At some point, the savings in fuel costs won't make up for that monthly payment. Widespread public transport in the US is simply a fantasy. Most of our cities are way too spread out for it to work. Here in LA, the only thing the Metrolink is good for is if you work in LA or somewhere close to a terminal. If you want to go from east Los Angeles County to, say, South Orange County, you're going to get sent all the way into LA proper or San Bernardino and bounce back into Orange County. You're probably looking at 80-100 miles one way and at least 10 stops either direction you go. That's great if you don't mind spending half of your day on a train.
Even assuming we have a large number of people moving into the city (and who can afford it) we will be left with a large number home homes in suburbia that need to be sold. They're not going to just sit there and rot - The depressed economy and fuel prices will continue to push their values down, but they WILL move once the price gets to that sweet spot. Again, the idea of owning your own land and not being subjected to rent increases or unreasonable whims by a butthead landlord is just too appealing to Americans. Also, most downtown areas and their immediate surroundings in the US tend to be cesspools of crime, noise, and crappy schools. I think most families would rather live with their commute even with gas prices being what they are.
Here's what I think will happen - Instead of cutting down on the commute, people will start to look at ways to use less gas during it. That means econoboxes, hybrids, and motorcycles will rule the day. People who already live a short distance from their workplace may start biking and ditch the second family car. We'll probably see things like 4 day workweeks and, thanks to widespread VoIP and broadband tech, more telecommuting. We're going to see huge capital being dumped into alternative fuels and energy generation tech. I am very excited about the developments I'm seeing in hydrogen technology and hyper-efficient solar cells, and as gas prices keep going up it just makes more and more business sense to fund research into these technologies. Sorry, but we're going to see that stuff way before we see cramped highrises and decent public transport in our cities.
Well yeah I'd be pissed too, but we all have the video of Win98 BSODing on BillG during a conference. I doubt at that point it should have been a secret to him that Windows had "usability issues". Eh, maybe you're right and he is crazily out of touch. I guess in that case the fact that he's never used his own OS explains a lot.
Ok which one of you is pretending to be billg today? The email looks more like a rant someone would post on Slashdot rather than someone sending an email to top Windows architects. A bunch of complaining and no suggestions, and it's written with far too much underlying contempt.
What is wrong with our democracy? Look no farther than career politicians, payola, and privilege. I think things would work better if our lawmakers weren't aristocratic bastards with no connection to the population at large, taking money from their corporate buddies to lock their elections.
Then again, on the flip side we have an uneducated population unable to think for themselves, who vote in greater numbers for the next American Idol than they do for the idiots pushing this stuff through. And yet still they keep electing the same guy.
There is no hope. We are rotting from the inside out and I doubt that will change any time soon.
When I first moved to my city, DSL and cable were not available. 6 years ago I started a job located about 4 miles away from my home, and they had a T1. Turns out my condo had radio line of sight to work. What I did was set up two Linux boxes on peer to peer wireless using Orinico cards since they had the jack for an external antenna. To those I hooked up the appropriate pigtails and LMR-400 microwave cable to the parabolic grid antennas on the roof of each location. After configuring Linux to handle the routing, bam I was the first guy in my city with broadband. Actually, I'm still running on it though cable and DSL is now available.
Now granted this was the old school way of doing it. The other problem was that I was using 75 feet of LMR-400 cable on each end to bring the signal from the antenna to my card. That's generally not a good idea since long runs of cable attenuate the signal, so it's always best to have your network equipment as close to the antenna as possible. But back then that type of stuff was hella expensive - Just between the grid antennas, the cards, the dongles, and the cables it came out to about $600. You don't even want to know what the network equipment would have cost, which is why I ran it on the cheap using Linux.
But now this stuff practically grows on trees. There are kits around that let you do long distance point-to-point hookups, but I don't know where to get them off the top of my head since I haven't researched it in awhile. You might want to start with Radio Labs to get an idea of the type of equipment that's out there. Bottom line is that if I can get a decent wifi signal from four miles away with a non-optimal configuration, you should be able to do 500m as long as you have line of sight. I think you should be able to get away with it for around $500 or less.
The same type of people who owned land on Earth during the Frontier days. Whoever got their first that had the biggest guns, or had someone with big guns backing them. The schmoes down here can waste the money on all the moon land they want, but if China plops a moon base on it what are they going to do then?
"Hey thanks my land!" "OK. Come and claim it"
The battle for moon real estate will be between countries. Individuals are totally out of the picture, at least within our lifetimes.
John the Baptist wasn't a crank who got disbarred for filing frivolous lawsuits. Thompson is delusional. He seems to think that video games, and nothing else, is responsible for all of the world's evils. And when scripture starts getting quoted, you know you're in for some nutjobbery. The Bible verses were just over the top. And going to the mom? What the hell, is he trying to say "Hey Zelnick, I know where your mom lives. Muhahhaa"
I'm sure there's going to be fallout from this. I eagerly await Zelnick's reply.
There is a reason we have the government we have at this time. People don't care about politics. They don't care about shady backroom deals, no-bid contracts, pervasive surveillance, or the couple's son across town dying in the war. They don't care because it doesn't affect THEM. In America, people only get involved or want to change the status quo when something happens to them or their pocketbooks. Other times they buy bullshit like "Don't change horses in mid stream" or "The surge is working" or "Housing won't collapse". As ideal as your ideas are, I'm afraid they won't fly because of this. People are only too happy to cede control of their lives to someone else and can't shake the "government knows best" syndrome. At least until it's blazingly obvious that they don't.
I criticized Apple once. I got modded down and someone put themselves on my "Freaks" tab. However, this is Slashdot and I think it's safe to assume that everyone hates my opinion anyway. As for the real world, I feel that overall I don't have too much to worry about Apple users physically. It's like the playground back in elementary school. If you want to get away from some girl who's chasing you, you run to the boys' bathroom. Well if you want to get away from Apple users, you run to the datacenter. They won't dare follow.:)
Have you been reading the news? The Taliban have reconstituted themselves in Afghanistan to the point where they are now causing problems in Pakistan. It's one thing to have some crazy mullah demanding that cell services be taken offline for some arbitrary about of time, but seeing as how the Taliban are once again seizing territory and conducting suicide attacks, it does not matter whether the cell companies give in or not. The point is the Taliban has come back under our watch and likely has the ability to follow through with their threats.
And your assertation that the Taliban are losing because they are worried about cell towers, well..ha ha...hahahaha. My boy, you need to stop watching American Idol with that Bill O'Reilly chaser.
Perhaps my original post wasn't as clear as it should have been, but the endgame I put forth remains the same. Our Middle East adventure is a micromanaged political war, just like Vietnam. During Vietnam, the peoples' concerns regarding the wisdom of such a war were kept in check by the government telling then the commies will get them. Only today it's terrorists. Even in the unlikely event we do "win", the whole region will slide back to square one because of our inability to follow through. When we kicked the Russians out of Afghanistan we didn't want to confront them directly, so we armed and trained local freedom fighters - One of whom was Osama bin Laden. But once the Reds were gone we had no reason to stick around and help the Afghanis rebuild. So the seedling Taliban took root to fill the vacuum and Osama went on his merry way to begin his illustrious future career as our favorite boogeyman. Ta daaa! Do you see how this works now?
Nice to know the Taliban has regained enough power in Afghanistan where they can make such demands. We've half-assed Afghanistan, we've half-assed Iraq, and we are going to lose both. I don't know if history will ever figure out how such a simpleton ended up doing two terms in office.
I'm saying that because if he gets an unlimited plan for both him and his wife, he's up to $100/mo, assuming $50 for each line. Two cards, two lines, two charges.
It depends on your Internet habits. Do you do peer to peer? Then forget it. Verizon says they have an "unlimited" plan, but they've been known to whack high usage individuals. Sprint is better about that, but large usage does attract their attention. If you are interested in mobile broadband in the US, those are really your only two choices. The GSM providers (AT&T & T-Mobile) just don't have the bandwidth. So if you want speed, you gotta use a CDMA carrier. I can tell you from personal experience that my Sprint card pulls 1.5mbs in a lot of places. However, it should be noted that speed is completely dependent on how far away you are from the tower (taking into account obstructions) and how many people are on. So, if you're far away from the tower and there's a ton of people in the area using it regularly, that's also a good reason not to get mobile broadband.
The relative price you mentioned of mobile broadband vs cable confuses me. You are either getting colossally ripped off for cable broadband or you are not pricing unlimited plans for your mobile broadband cards. Normally, unlimited plans are around $50/mo. Get it. Trust me. I've got a friend at Sprint who's got stories of peoples' laptops getting trojaned and winding up with a $2000 bill in the mail for bandwidth overage. And I'm assuming that you and your wife are each getting a separate plan.
Or let's say you've got an excellent signal and ridiculous speeds at your house, are not a warez monkey, and you want to share a single card between you and your wife. Well, you can get a broadband router which takes PCMCIA mobile broadband cards. I picked this Airlink 101 at Fry's for $80. It's got an Ethernet switch and is an 802.11b/g access point. Only problem is if one of you goes on a trip and takes the card the other will have to steal the neighbors' WiFi.
Do you like getting your hands dirty playing with the latest toys? Do you enjoy being intellectually challenged? Do you have a low tolerance for duplicity?
If so, then avoid management like the plague. I've seen a lot of guys fall into the same trap you're going into. They got lured by the money and took the management position, and then all of a sudden they were buried in paperwork, kissing corporate's ass, and ordering people around. Their skillset ended up rotting. One friend of mine decided he couldn't take it anymore, and had a hard time getting back into the tech side of things because his knowledge was so outdated. He ended up taking an entry level tech position at a small company.
Leave management to the brainless MBA bean counters. Tech guys don't belong in that position.
Slashdot Mirror
Hang on a second. All wireless clients I've see do not automatically connect to an SSID unless its already set up in the wireless profile. The only way I could see the scenario you describe possibly happening is if you and your neighbor had matching SSIDs. Did it occur to you to change yours?
Is that all they're allowing? Power nazis.
My rule for input devices - If I can't kill someone with it, it doesn't belong on my desk.
Before everyone goes spouting off about how we're becoming a police state, has anyone (including submitter) bothered to read the linked police report? The cop refers to "prior negative contacts" with this person for both him and the administration. The chick ignores the teachers, lies to the cops, and brazenly continues to text in class. It's too bad the cops had to waste cycles getting involved, but judging from the police report the school personnel were at the end of their rope.
Nice that you had the $5K and made enough after expenses to save it up.
What about the people that don't?
I'm still up in their air as to whether Moller's creation is going to get legs, but you can't really compare what he's doing to a Harrier. Moller's Skycar uses fans powered by rotary engines, NOT vectored thrust from a turbofan like the Harrier does, so there's no surface blistering.
As far as the public being "too stupid" to own flying cars, they were saying much the same things about those novel playthings if the rich, the horseless carriage, when they first started rolling out. Too complicated, too expensive, and too difficult to operate for the average person, they said. Until Henry Ford came along, that is.
I contend that not only will flying cars happen, they are inevitable. In our lifetimes though? That's another story. The biggest hurdle is that the air traffic control system is set up a certain way that doesn't facilitate controlled skylanes. Training, enforcement, where to take off and land, systems to deal with IFR conditions, computer guidance, etc are all factors that need to come into play to make it happen. The FAA is the biggest hurdle to all of this, and if anything will kill the flying car for the foreseeable future, it's them.
Your entire argument is based on IF the owner had his contact details hidden, which we don't know because of the smattering of info we've received in the OP. It's no secret that there are all sorts of bots trolling through WHOIS databases for email addresses, either, and we know from the Nigerian 419 scams that there are armies of con artists trying to shake people down via unsolicited transactions. Why am I the only guy in this entire thread who thinks the solicitor may not be acting in good faith? Am I missing something here?
Personally, I would be more inclined to keep the domain and ignore the email. The bottom line is you got an unsolicited message from from some schmoe who provided you with very few details - It looks like a bulk email to me and smells strongly of a scam.
Here take a look at this. It could be this scam adapted to domain names. If you REALLY want to take a chance on this guy, get the money wired or make damn sure anything he sends you clears before you lift a finger. This is particularly true if the numbers he's talking are too-good-to-be-true amounts.
How is this different from a Peltier cooler?
Set up a WiFi link to the moon.
I don't buy into this theory that everyone's going to move into urban areas because of gas prices. There are too many people, too much existing infrastructure, and too much cultural momentum behind the idea of owning your own home for people pull up their stakes and start living on top of each other in tiny apartments.
Market forces will keep people pushed out to the fringes - If a large number of people do move towards the city, it will have the effect of driving up real estate prices and rents. At some point, the savings in fuel costs won't make up for that monthly payment. Widespread public transport in the US is simply a fantasy. Most of our cities are way too spread out for it to work. Here in LA, the only thing the Metrolink is good for is if you work in LA or somewhere close to a terminal. If you want to go from east Los Angeles County to, say, South Orange County, you're going to get sent all the way into LA proper or San Bernardino and bounce back into Orange County. You're probably looking at 80-100 miles one way and at least 10 stops either direction you go. That's great if you don't mind spending half of your day on a train.
Even assuming we have a large number of people moving into the city (and who can afford it) we will be left with a large number home homes in suburbia that need to be sold. They're not going to just sit there and rot - The depressed economy and fuel prices will continue to push their values down, but they WILL move once the price gets to that sweet spot. Again, the idea of owning your own land and not being subjected to rent increases or unreasonable whims by a butthead landlord is just too appealing to Americans. Also, most downtown areas and their immediate surroundings in the US tend to be cesspools of crime, noise, and crappy schools. I think most families would rather live with their commute even with gas prices being what they are.
Here's what I think will happen - Instead of cutting down on the commute, people will start to look at ways to use less gas during it. That means econoboxes, hybrids, and motorcycles will rule the day. People who already live a short distance from their workplace may start biking and ditch the second family car. We'll probably see things like 4 day workweeks and, thanks to widespread VoIP and broadband tech, more telecommuting. We're going to see huge capital being dumped into alternative fuels and energy generation tech. I am very excited about the developments I'm seeing in hydrogen technology and hyper-efficient solar cells, and as gas prices keep going up it just makes more and more business sense to fund research into these technologies. Sorry, but we're going to see that stuff way before we see cramped highrises and decent public transport in our cities.
Well yeah I'd be pissed too, but we all have the video of Win98 BSODing on BillG during a conference. I doubt at that point it should have been a secret to him that Windows had "usability issues". Eh, maybe you're right and he is crazily out of touch. I guess in that case the fact that he's never used his own OS explains a lot.
Ok which one of you is pretending to be billg today? The email looks more like a rant someone would post on Slashdot rather than someone sending an email to top Windows architects. A bunch of complaining and no suggestions, and it's written with far too much underlying contempt.
What is wrong with our democracy? Look no farther than career politicians, payola, and privilege. I think things would work better if our lawmakers weren't aristocratic bastards with no connection to the population at large, taking money from their corporate buddies to lock their elections.
Then again, on the flip side we have an uneducated population unable to think for themselves, who vote in greater numbers for the next American Idol than they do for the idiots pushing this stuff through. And yet still they keep electing the same guy.
There is no hope. We are rotting from the inside out and I doubt that will change any time soon.
When I first moved to my city, DSL and cable were not available. 6 years ago I started a job located about 4 miles away from my home, and they had a T1. Turns out my condo had radio line of sight to work. What I did was set up two Linux boxes on peer to peer wireless using Orinico cards since they had the jack for an external antenna. To those I hooked up the appropriate pigtails and LMR-400 microwave cable to the parabolic grid antennas on the roof of each location. After configuring Linux to handle the routing, bam I was the first guy in my city with broadband. Actually, I'm still running on it though cable and DSL is now available.
Now granted this was the old school way of doing it. The other problem was that I was using 75 feet of LMR-400 cable on each end to bring the signal from the antenna to my card. That's generally not a good idea since long runs of cable attenuate the signal, so it's always best to have your network equipment as close to the antenna as possible. But back then that type of stuff was hella expensive - Just between the grid antennas, the cards, the dongles, and the cables it came out to about $600. You don't even want to know what the network equipment would have cost, which is why I ran it on the cheap using Linux.
But now this stuff practically grows on trees. There are kits around that let you do long distance point-to-point hookups, but I don't know where to get them off the top of my head since I haven't researched it in awhile. You might want to start with Radio Labs to get an idea of the type of equipment that's out there. Bottom line is that if I can get a decent wifi signal from four miles away with a non-optimal configuration, you should be able to do 500m as long as you have line of sight. I think you should be able to get away with it for around $500 or less.
The same type of people who owned land on Earth during the Frontier days. Whoever got their first that had the biggest guns, or had someone with big guns backing them. The schmoes down here can waste the money on all the moon land they want, but if China plops a moon base on it what are they going to do then?
"Hey thanks my land!"
"OK. Come and claim it"
The battle for moon real estate will be between countries. Individuals are totally out of the picture, at least within our lifetimes.
John the Baptist wasn't a crank who got disbarred for filing frivolous lawsuits. Thompson is delusional. He seems to think that video games, and nothing else, is responsible for all of the world's evils. And when scripture starts getting quoted, you know you're in for some nutjobbery. The Bible verses were just over the top. And going to the mom? What the hell, is he trying to say "Hey Zelnick, I know where your mom lives. Muhahhaa"
I'm sure there's going to be fallout from this. I eagerly await Zelnick's reply.
There is a reason we have the government we have at this time. People don't care about politics. They don't care about shady backroom deals, no-bid contracts, pervasive surveillance, or the couple's son across town dying in the war. They don't care because it doesn't affect THEM. In America, people only get involved or want to change the status quo when something happens to them or their pocketbooks. Other times they buy bullshit like "Don't change horses in mid stream" or "The surge is working" or "Housing won't collapse". As ideal as your ideas are, I'm afraid they won't fly because of this. People are only too happy to cede control of their lives to someone else and can't shake the "government knows best" syndrome. At least until it's blazingly obvious that they don't.
I criticized Apple once. I got modded down and someone put themselves on my "Freaks" tab. However, this is Slashdot and I think it's safe to assume that everyone hates my opinion anyway. As for the real world, I feel that overall I don't have too much to worry about Apple users physically. It's like the playground back in elementary school. If you want to get away from some girl who's chasing you, you run to the boys' bathroom. Well if you want to get away from Apple users, you run to the datacenter. They won't dare follow. :)
Have you been reading the news? The Taliban have reconstituted themselves in Afghanistan to the point where they are now causing problems in Pakistan. It's one thing to have some crazy mullah demanding that cell services be taken offline for some arbitrary about of time, but seeing as how the Taliban are once again seizing territory and conducting suicide attacks, it does not matter whether the cell companies give in or not. The point is the Taliban has come back under our watch and likely has the ability to follow through with their threats.
And your assertation that the Taliban are losing because they are worried about cell towers, well..ha ha...hahahaha. My boy, you need to stop watching American Idol with that Bill O'Reilly chaser.
Perhaps my original post wasn't as clear as it should have been, but the endgame I put forth remains the same. Our Middle East adventure is a micromanaged political war, just like Vietnam. During Vietnam, the peoples' concerns regarding the wisdom of such a war were kept in check by the government telling then the commies will get them. Only today it's terrorists. Even in the unlikely event we do "win", the whole region will slide back to square one because of our inability to follow through. When we kicked the Russians out of Afghanistan we didn't want to confront them directly, so we armed and trained local freedom fighters - One of whom was Osama bin Laden. But once the Reds were gone we had no reason to stick around and help the Afghanis rebuild. So the seedling Taliban took root to fill the vacuum and Osama went on his merry way to begin his illustrious future career as our favorite boogeyman. Ta daaa! Do you see how this works now?
Nice to know the Taliban has regained enough power in Afghanistan where they can make such demands. We've half-assed Afghanistan, we've half-assed Iraq, and we are going to lose both. I don't know if history will ever figure out how such a simpleton ended up doing two terms in office.
I'm saying that because if he gets an unlimited plan for both him and his wife, he's up to $100/mo, assuming $50 for each line. Two cards, two lines, two charges.
It depends on your Internet habits. Do you do peer to peer? Then forget it. Verizon says they have an "unlimited" plan, but they've been known to whack high usage individuals. Sprint is better about that, but large usage does attract their attention. If you are interested in mobile broadband in the US, those are really your only two choices. The GSM providers (AT&T & T-Mobile) just don't have the bandwidth. So if you want speed, you gotta use a CDMA carrier. I can tell you from personal experience that my Sprint card pulls 1.5mbs in a lot of places. However, it should be noted that speed is completely dependent on how far away you are from the tower (taking into account obstructions) and how many people are on. So, if you're far away from the tower and there's a ton of people in the area using it regularly, that's also a good reason not to get mobile broadband.
The relative price you mentioned of mobile broadband vs cable confuses me. You are either getting colossally ripped off for cable broadband or you are not pricing unlimited plans for your mobile broadband cards. Normally, unlimited plans are around $50/mo. Get it. Trust me. I've got a friend at Sprint who's got stories of peoples' laptops getting trojaned and winding up with a $2000 bill in the mail for bandwidth overage. And I'm assuming that you and your wife are each getting a separate plan.
Or let's say you've got an excellent signal and ridiculous speeds at your house, are not a warez monkey, and you want to share a single card between you and your wife. Well, you can get a broadband router which takes PCMCIA mobile broadband cards. I picked this Airlink 101 at Fry's for $80. It's got an Ethernet switch and is an 802.11b/g access point. Only problem is if one of you goes on a trip and takes the card the other will have to steal the neighbors' WiFi.
Thick metal like what you see on HD's will stop most pistol rounds (Except maybe the S&W .50). If you want to punch through, you've got to use a rifle.
Do you like getting your hands dirty playing with the latest toys? Do you enjoy being intellectually challenged? Do you have a low tolerance for duplicity?
If so, then avoid management like the plague. I've seen a lot of guys fall into the same trap you're going into. They got lured by the money and took the management position, and then all of a sudden they were buried in paperwork, kissing corporate's ass, and ordering people around. Their skillset ended up rotting. One friend of mine decided he couldn't take it anymore, and had a hard time getting back into the tech side of things because his knowledge was so outdated. He ended up taking an entry level tech position at a small company.
Leave management to the brainless MBA bean counters. Tech guys don't belong in that position.