One might posit that in our present state we have halted, or at least significantly slowed, our own evolution by Darwinian standards... after all, how can evolution continue when for the most part most of the world's people live long enough to reach sexual maturity and the vast majority of which have sufficient free will when it comes to procreation.
So perhaps an alien race capable of finding us would simply be "us", but several hundred (or thousand?) years advanced from our present technology level, they may simply be bored and looking to travel just as we have people living in "developed" countries today who travel to various locations around the globe for benign purposes.
Or better yet, maybe they need some basic and plentiful element that we can trade with them...
Or maybe they'll eat our eye balls like juju bees... who knows...
What is to skeptical about when it comes to SETI? I mean, do you doubt the existence of ET intelligence? The current programs ability to find them? Or do you question the current desire of some to find them?
Now... if you want to doubt the current programs that's one thing... looking simply at radio waves is a narrow focus based on what we currently believe to be the best way to transmit information in our particular place. In 200 years we might look at the concept of radio transmission in the same way that today we look at the concept of using drums or smoke signals for communication... slow data rate, limited range, etc...
But each time you look up at that sky realize that some of those dots are not actually suns... they are entire GALAXIES of suns. With millions of potential star systems why is it so difficult to believe that some of them might contain a civilization that is at a point which is equal to or far greater then our current current state of technology and may in fact be transmitting something we can "hear"?...and if it's because "we're too far to bother", imagine if people had said that back in the days of sailing ships and horses... the desire to travel great distances in the shortest possible time has pushed for some amazing discoveries.
Apace Allens, much like our own Earth-based Illegal-Allens, will simply continue to exist without drawing notice from the public, or even the scientific community.
I called INS the other day on a guy at work, but it turned out he was an Alan, and they don't accept those for deportation...
I'm having a hard time feeling sorry for someone who knew for a fact it was insecure and didn't seek help or look for another solution.
Unfortunately I have to somewhat agree despite hating the concept and wishing there was more open wi-fi out there...
Think of it this way---Imagine if you had a telephone mounted to the outside wall of your house... at the same time there is a child out there who has been kidnapped, they have a suspicion of who is associated with this, so they have a wiretap authority for that person... Someone walks up to your house and uses your outside phone to make a call to that person, during the call they talk about the child... So now your phone line is clearly associated with this activity...
But wait, you didn't make the call... it was someone who used your outside phone line! You don't have any control over that right?
Right it's true, you don't... but before that can be established the police have to take some action to protect someone. Putting a side the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of the response of the police departments, you have to agree that they need to take some action... and depending on the evidence and severity of what's going on, that action might be very severe.
Well, having an open wi-fi router is like instantly installing a phone jack--connected to your line--in every house, tree, car, etc within 300' or so of your house. Would you want that?
Ignorance of technology is not an excuse for allowing it to be abused.
New wi-fi routers are CHEAP, in fact, probably cost less than one month of what many people pay for TV/internet. New wi-fi routers are also quite easy to setup, and many include very easy to follow charts w/ lots of pictures for going through a "quick setup".
Good for aesthetics......apparently also good for preventing you from quickly disabling the phone once stolen...
It might take an unpracticed hand well over 5 mins of prying to get into the case before the battery can be pulled (assuming you did not want to destroy the device in the process)... you can upload a lot of data on a high speed network in that time... Apple will spin this as a feature which enables preservation of your important data prior to a remote wipe, of course it also has other uses...
After the complete release of all major nuclear weapons results in the total annihilation of civilization (and most life) I'm pretty sure they can drop that baby down to "Low"... there won't be much a homeland left to worry about securing...
Yes, I am fully aware of the dangers of non-regulated traffic shaping. Hell, I experience a variant on it every day--the place I work at has a very aggressive web filter; they recently put in a new rule that filters out anything mentioning some specific incidents that could be construed as critical of the parent organization.
I agree..... yet have to say that I would never have any issue w/ my company restricting access to the network... it's their dime. Now, it's a completely different story when as a private citizen I buy access from a company where they don't explicitly state in the contract I sign with them what they will and will not allow... none of this "terms and conditions may change" shit, or vague references to how they may restrict you based on mysterious criteria...
...the reason Hutchison is putting forward this legislation is because these senators feel that the government is over-doing regulation, they want to see the Gov. take a step back and focus on the budget, not make more regulation...
There are a few things wrong--- 1) They don't know their recent US history... take a peek at a book regarding how the population of our country was doing back when major individuals or companies had cart blanche to make decisions and were mainly free of government regulation and interference... yep, it sucked to be one of the masses...
2) They believe that companies are run by people, and people will make the right decision... see #1
3) They think that our laws today protect people too much, so they actively work to dismantle protections for citizens... again, see #1
"History is doomed to repeat itself" is not a saying that someone made up from fiction... it's a truism... people forget even the recent past and soon end up back making the same mistakes. Unfortunately this ultimately means the end of the current western society... I guess we'll just hope it's a soft landing in favor of something that maybe isn't so bad.
Republican Politicians and Type A Constituents: "I've got mine" Republican Type B Constituents: "Don't take away my right to get mine"
Democrat Politicians: "I'll get you yours" Democrat Type A Constituents: "Where's mine? Democrat Type B Constituents: "I feel guilty you don't have yours"
The problem here is that the Republican's are more organized and on message:)
What I would like to understand is why this is attached to a military/veteran's bill?
We all know--it's so that it will pass. But why do we accept these tactics as commonplace?
My guess is that if light is shined on this--why Senator, do you support this? She'll have some dubious explanation of how this is necessary for the survival of corporations, and that the survival of corporations is necessary for the employment of US citizens (they still cling to that whole trickle-down theory because frankly it supports them (the rich) and their key financial supporters (the richer)).
It's disgusting and it happens every day... but the average citizen is either not informed, uninterested or powerless to do anything about it.
THIS. Thanks Darkness404...the people in true power elevate small elite groups as sheriffs and local rulers, those groups never want to give up the current system because they are above the common masses.
The trick is the balancing act of giving the masses just enough to keep them complacent, squashing any uprisings before word gets out, suppressing and spinning information given to the masses and of course, the primary rule: make sure that in general the masses don't have access to weapons any more advanced then rocks and sharp sticks.
100 people with rocks and sticks versus 1 person in a tank... my money is on the tank, and with state run media and suppression of communication (electronic and otherwise), most of us will never know.
...I can come and go as I please, travel, experience life and all it has to offer.
Well... "life" except for that giant bit of it that involves having your own children.
I'm with you, I don't think that having kids is going to complete me... I think it's going to add stress, worry and burden for about 20-30 years each, then hopefully they will be secure in their own lives and I can reap the benefits of having a younger generation that loves and appreciates me... or at least by then I'll have dementia and think that's the case.
Also a woman is seens as a risk. Yes, I know it's sexist and no employer will ever admit it because he could be dragged to court for it, but there is the "risk" that she will get pregnant and go on maternity leave
There is also risk that a male will get a better job... so how is that any different?
I can't understand how your post was modded as insightful... must be troll-moderator day
APC Smart UPS specifically states not to do that. It says that each power cable should go into one receptor.
I bet that's their C-Y-A recommendation to help reduce instances of people overloading the UPS or plugging devices into a power strip and not realizing that it is sourced from a UPS.
After all, if you have a power strip with a combined 5-6A of load with 5 plugs in it, how is that really different from plugging those 5 individual plugs into the UPS separately? Either way you have a 5-6A load on your inverter and a 5-6A load through the various wires/connections. Each one of the outlets on the UPS must be capable of feeding the same level as the total input power (~15A), or be individually fused at lower ratings, otherwise they would be fire hazards and would not pass UL requirements.
Though I wouldn't take advice from myself on this topic--my entire living room (Wii, Xbox360, DVD player, controller chargers, lamp, cordless phone base, linksys router, motorola cable box and 37" LCD TV) is plugged into a power strip which is then plugged into a Belkin UPS which in turn is connected via a 3->2 "cheater" adapter to some circa 1900 knob and tube wiring--and yes the UPS constantly has it's "ground fault" indicator on, but since none of my devices, except for the UPS itself, require grounding I think I'm OK except that I lose the surge suppression ability from the power strip and UPS.
Unlike you, I'm not yanking this out of my ass; I actually spoke to a CPUC guy who e-mailed me a copy of the information he had on file from PG&E.
I've heard this claim before, however I haven't seen any evidence to back it up--I'm not necessarily disputing it, I just want to see the write up myself.
I think the distinction comes to a wall wart that is plugged into a device and wall wart that is not plugged into a device.
I assume if this PG&E claim is true then it is probably a matter of them spinning reality to make an interesting press release, and I would guess that what PG&E did to come up with their 6-8% estimate due to wall warts is count the usage for *all* wall wart's including those that have actual operating devices connected to them at the time of measurement. I would fully believe the 6-8% statistic in that case.
Wall warts that are plugged in to line power, but do not have a device connected--i.e. cell phone charger not plugged into cell phone--do not draw very much power, certainly not 6-8% of the average household's use. For about $24.95 you can buy a Kill-A-Watt device and see this for yourself.
...and if they are in fact using active wall warts in their calculation of this statistic then it's really not very useful information. After all, when considering power consumption what is the difference between a wall wart plugged into an operating device and a device with a built in power supply? Take your PC for example, after the power supply itself, absolutely nothing inside of it uses line power--so how is that different from a wall wart device?
People don't go to the mall and leave their car unlocked*, so why do users think security on a computer is not just as important?
Well... I don't know if that's an accurate analogy because you know fairly quickly when you return if a thief has stolen something from your parked car.
I think it would be more analogous to think of the malware as an invisible car-jacker who can jump in your car without your noticing when you're driving along the road. That car-jacker waits in your back seat--listening to your conversations (key logging), relaying your location back to it's boss, and possibly will take control of your car while you aren't in it--and you might not even know this is all happening.
So I guess it might be better to say "why do people think they can drive through bad neighborhoods with their car doors unlocked" ???:)
So that would make firewalls and securing exploits like locks and closed windows... and Norton is like a guy who rides around in your back seat and should a car-jacker jump in he yells "Hey who the heck is this?!?" and kicks him out if you say so.
Oops, I should have been more clear in what I wrote...
I have issue w/ the analogy between morse code vs. voice for sms vs. voice... the idea being that morse code is more easily transmittable with questionable signal so it's intelligible when voice would not be, therefore sms would be better able to get through vs. a voice call.
I understand the idea that a voice channel may not be available to place/receive a call on because of congestion. In fact I'd take it one step further to say that I'd probably have an easier time sorting out overlapping voice conversations vs. overlapping morse code... so in that regard voice might be better?:)
1. Text messages work when voice calls are dropped for the same reason Morse can get through when SSB voice can't.
At this point it's all data... so why would TXT get thru and not voice? only explanation might be that more data doesn't get thru, or that re-tries make it happen...
but I don't buy the tone-signaling vs. voice argument... it's just bits...
Umm... it's not a public service, and they didn't say it was... you seem to have taken that leap all on your own...
It's just like any other gambling organization... they pay out some fraction of what they take in, the remaining fraction is their income... as a player you hope you're one of the small minority of who walks out with more money then they walked in with, and the ones who walk out with much less will console themselves by saying how it was fun to play, and they enjoyed the free buffet.
Sounds like this model is similar to other online gambling models where the site acts as a broker between individuals playing and not much as a "house" that you can beat.
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One might posit that in our present state we have halted, or at least significantly slowed, our own evolution by Darwinian standards... after all, how can evolution continue when for the most part most of the world's people live long enough to reach sexual maturity and the vast majority of which have sufficient free will when it comes to procreation.
So perhaps an alien race capable of finding us would simply be "us", but several hundred (or thousand?) years advanced from our present technology level, they may simply be bored and looking to travel just as we have people living in "developed" countries today who travel to various locations around the globe for benign purposes.
Or better yet, maybe they need some basic and plentiful element that we can trade with them...
Or maybe they'll eat our eye balls like juju bees... who knows...
What is to skeptical about when it comes to SETI? I mean, do you doubt the existence of ET intelligence? The current programs ability to find them? Or do you question the current desire of some to find them?
Now... if you want to doubt the current programs that's one thing... looking simply at radio waves is a narrow focus based on what we currently believe to be the best way to transmit information in our particular place. In 200 years we might look at the concept of radio transmission in the same way that today we look at the concept of using drums or smoke signals for communication... slow data rate, limited range, etc...
But each time you look up at that sky realize that some of those dots are not actually suns... they are entire GALAXIES of suns. With millions of potential star systems why is it so difficult to believe that some of them might contain a civilization that is at a point which is equal to or far greater then our current current state of technology and may in fact be transmitting something we can "hear"? ...and if it's because "we're too far to bother", imagine if people had said that back in the days of sailing ships and horses... the desire to travel great distances in the shortest possible time has pushed for some amazing discoveries.
Hey, so what was up w/ the 6 months thing? What is the difference between Hibernation and Shutdown and why is 6 months a key number?
BTW, I agree w/ your Sig and make a money donation to UC-B for Seti each year, as well as run a few machines for the project... since 1999 :)
Apace Allens, much like our own Earth-based Illegal-Allens, will simply continue to exist without drawing notice from the public, or even the scientific community.
I called INS the other day on a guy at work, but it turned out he was an Alan, and they don't accept those for deportation...
I'm having a hard time feeling sorry for someone who knew for a fact it was insecure and didn't seek help or look for another solution.
Unfortunately I have to somewhat agree despite hating the concept and wishing there was more open wi-fi out there...
Think of it this way---Imagine if you had a telephone mounted to the outside wall of your house... at the same time there is a child out there who has been kidnapped, they have a suspicion of who is associated with this, so they have a wiretap authority for that person... Someone walks up to your house and uses your outside phone to make a call to that person, during the call they talk about the child... So now your phone line is clearly associated with this activity...
But wait, you didn't make the call... it was someone who used your outside phone line! You don't have any control over that right?
Right it's true, you don't... but before that can be established the police have to take some action to protect someone. Putting a side the appropriateness (or lack thereof) of the response of the police departments, you have to agree that they need to take some action... and depending on the evidence and severity of what's going on, that action might be very severe.
Well, having an open wi-fi router is like instantly installing a phone jack--connected to your line--in every house, tree, car, etc within 300' or so of your house. Would you want that?
Ignorance of technology is not an excuse for allowing it to be abused.
New wi-fi routers are CHEAP, in fact, probably cost less than one month of what many people pay for TV/internet. New wi-fi routers are also quite easy to setup, and many include very easy to follow charts w/ lots of pictures for going through a "quick setup".
You might get unlucky and get backwater projects that nobody cares about but nobody has the cajones to properly cancel.
One man's trash is another man's treasure...... you're describing my dream job! Low pressure, job security... yes please! :)
Good for aesthetics... ...apparently also good for preventing you from quickly disabling the phone once stolen...
It might take an unpracticed hand well over 5 mins of prying to get into the case before the battery can be pulled (assuming you did not want to destroy the device in the process)... you can upload a lot of data on a high speed network in that time... Apple will spin this as a feature which enables preservation of your important data prior to a remote wipe, of course it also has other uses...
After the complete release of all major nuclear weapons results in the total annihilation of civilization (and most life) I'm pretty sure they can drop that baby down to "Low"... there won't be much a homeland left to worry about securing...
Hah... anyone who was waiting for THIS news to leave BoA has had their head in the sand...
Yes, I am fully aware of the dangers of non-regulated traffic shaping. Hell, I experience a variant on it every day--the place I work at has a very aggressive web filter; they recently put in a new rule that filters out anything mentioning some specific incidents that could be construed as critical of the parent organization.
I agree..... yet have to say that I would never have any issue w/ my company restricting access to the network... it's their dime. Now, it's a completely different story when as a private citizen I buy access from a company where they don't explicitly state in the contract I sign with them what they will and will not allow... none of this "terms and conditions may change" shit, or vague references to how they may restrict you based on mysterious criteria...
...the reason Hutchison is putting forward this legislation is because these senators feel that the government is over-doing regulation, they want to see the Gov. take a step back and focus on the budget, not make more regulation...
There are a few things wrong---
1) They don't know their recent US history... take a peek at a book regarding how the population of our country was doing back when major individuals or companies had cart blanche to make decisions and were mainly free of government regulation and interference... yep, it sucked to be one of the masses...
2) They believe that companies are run by people, and people will make the right decision... see #1
3) They think that our laws today protect people too much, so they actively work to dismantle protections for citizens... again, see #1
"History is doomed to repeat itself" is not a saying that someone made up from fiction... it's a truism... people forget even the recent past and soon end up back making the same mistakes. Unfortunately this ultimately means the end of the current western society... I guess we'll just hope it's a soft landing in favor of something that maybe isn't so bad.
No, no, you've got it all wrong...
A true liberal can never be mugged... he makes a last minute donation to a local charity.
Republican Politicians and Type A Constituents: "I've got mine"
Republican Type B Constituents: "Don't take away my right to get mine"
Democrat Politicians: "I'll get you yours"
Democrat Type A Constituents: "Where's mine?
Democrat Type B Constituents: "I feel guilty you don't have yours"
The problem here is that the Republican's are more organized and on message :)
What I would like to understand is why this is attached to a military/veteran's bill?
We all know--it's so that it will pass. But why do we accept these tactics as commonplace?
My guess is that if light is shined on this--why Senator, do you support this? She'll have some dubious explanation of how this is necessary for the survival of corporations, and that the survival of corporations is necessary for the employment of US citizens (they still cling to that whole trickle-down theory because frankly it supports them (the rich) and their key financial supporters (the richer)).
It's disgusting and it happens every day... but the average citizen is either not informed, uninterested or powerless to do anything about it.
THIS. Thanks Darkness404 ...the people in true power elevate small elite groups as sheriffs and local rulers, those groups never want to give up the current system because they are above the common masses.
The trick is the balancing act of giving the masses just enough to keep them complacent, squashing any uprisings before word gets out, suppressing and spinning information given to the masses and of course, the primary rule: make sure that in general the masses don't have access to weapons any more advanced then rocks and sharp sticks.
100 people with rocks and sticks versus 1 person in a tank ... my money is on the tank, and with state run media and suppression of communication (electronic and otherwise), most of us will never know.
...I can come and go as I please, travel, experience life and all it has to offer.
Well... "life" except for that giant bit of it that involves having your own children.
I'm with you, I don't think that having kids is going to complete me... I think it's going to add stress, worry and burden for about 20-30 years each, then hopefully they will be secure in their own lives and I can reap the benefits of having a younger generation that loves and appreciates me... or at least by then I'll have dementia and think that's the case.
Also a woman is seens as a risk. Yes, I know it's sexist and no employer will ever admit it because he could be dragged to court for it, but there is the "risk" that she will get pregnant and go on maternity leave
There is also risk that a male will get a better job ... so how is that any different?
I can't understand how your post was modded as insightful... must be troll-moderator day
I know plenty of women with no children who will disagree.
Your statement is logical, but I do not think it is not based on true statistical evidence.
I have about three decades of National Geographic that I can submit to dispute those studies
APC Smart UPS specifically states not to do that. It says that each power cable should go into one receptor.
I bet that's their C-Y-A recommendation to help reduce instances of people overloading the UPS or plugging devices into a power strip and not realizing that it is sourced from a UPS.
After all, if you have a power strip with a combined 5-6A of load with 5 plugs in it, how is that really different from plugging those 5 individual plugs into the UPS separately? Either way you have a 5-6A load on your inverter and a 5-6A load through the various wires/connections. Each one of the outlets on the UPS must be capable of feeding the same level as the total input power (~15A), or be individually fused at lower ratings, otherwise they would be fire hazards and would not pass UL requirements.
Though I wouldn't take advice from myself on this topic--my entire living room (Wii, Xbox360, DVD player, controller chargers, lamp, cordless phone base, linksys router, motorola cable box and 37" LCD TV) is plugged into a power strip which is then plugged into a Belkin UPS which in turn is connected via a 3->2 "cheater" adapter to some circa 1900 knob and tube wiring--and yes the UPS constantly has it's "ground fault" indicator on, but since none of my devices, except for the UPS itself, require grounding I think I'm OK except that I lose the surge suppression ability from the power strip and UPS.
Unlike you, I'm not yanking this out of my ass; I actually spoke to a CPUC guy who e-mailed me a copy of the information he had on file from PG&E.
...and if they are in fact using active wall warts in their calculation of this statistic then it's really not very useful information. After all, when considering power consumption what is the difference between a wall wart plugged into an operating device and a device with a built in power supply? Take your PC for example, after the power supply itself, absolutely nothing inside of it uses line power--so how is that different from a wall wart device?
I've heard this claim before, however I haven't seen any evidence to back it up--I'm not necessarily disputing it, I just want to see the write up myself.
I think the distinction comes to a wall wart that is plugged into a device and wall wart that is not plugged into a device.
I assume if this PG&E claim is true then it is probably a matter of them spinning reality to make an interesting press release, and I would guess that what PG&E did to come up with their 6-8% estimate due to wall warts is count the usage for *all* wall wart's including those that have actual operating devices connected to them at the time of measurement. I would fully believe the 6-8% statistic in that case.
Wall warts that are plugged in to line power, but do not have a device connected--i.e. cell phone charger not plugged into cell phone--do not draw very much power, certainly not 6-8% of the average household's use. For about $24.95 you can buy a Kill-A-Watt device and see this for yourself.
People don't go to the mall and leave their car unlocked*, so why do users think security on a computer is not just as important?
Well... I don't know if that's an accurate analogy because you know fairly quickly when you return if a thief has stolen something from your parked car.
I think it would be more analogous to think of the malware as an invisible car-jacker who can jump in your car without your noticing when you're driving along the road. That car-jacker waits in your back seat--listening to your conversations (key logging), relaying your location back to it's boss, and possibly will take control of your car while you aren't in it--and you might not even know this is all happening.
So I guess it might be better to say "why do people think they can drive through bad neighborhoods with their car doors unlocked" ??? :)
So that would make firewalls and securing exploits like locks and closed windows... and Norton is like a guy who rides around in your back seat and should a car-jacker jump in he yells "Hey who the heck is this?!?" and kicks him out if you say so.
Oops, I should have been more clear in what I wrote...
I have issue w/ the analogy between morse code vs. voice for sms vs. voice... the idea being that morse code is more easily transmittable with questionable signal so it's intelligible when voice would not be, therefore sms would be better able to get through vs. a voice call.
I understand the idea that a voice channel may not be available to place/receive a call on because of congestion. In fact I'd take it one step further to say that I'd probably have an easier time sorting out overlapping voice conversations vs. overlapping morse code... so in that regard voice might be better? :)
1. Text messages work when voice calls are dropped for the same reason Morse can get through when SSB voice can't.
At this point it's all data... so why would TXT get thru and not voice? only explanation might be that more data doesn't get thru, or that re-tries make it happen...
but I don't buy the tone-signaling vs. voice argument... it's just bits...
Umm... it's not a public service, and they didn't say it was... you seem to have taken that leap all on your own...
It's just like any other gambling organization... they pay out some fraction of what they take in, the remaining fraction is their income... as a player you hope you're one of the small minority of who walks out with more money then they walked in with, and the ones who walk out with much less will console themselves by saying how it was fun to play, and they enjoyed the free buffet.
Sounds like this model is similar to other online gambling models where the site acts as a broker between individuals playing and not much as a "house" that you can beat.