Okay, there will be some engineering issues since pretty much anything that interacts with lightning gets burnt to a crisp, but fusion has some similar technical problems so this isn't totally left field.
(a) how much actual power does lightning provide over, say, the continentaly US?
(b) what kinds of structures could be built/flown to tap into the electric charges in clouds?
I would actually recommend not even scanning a network *with* written authorization. The customer can scan it and send you a report if they want.
I personally know someone who was sent to prison for 6 months for scanning, finding a vulnerability, and informing the site admin. The guy didn't ask for money to fix it or anything.
Prosecutors and juries are simply not in tune with "hacker ethics". The guy in the expensive suit will just ask if you did scan or didn't, the 12 people in casual clothing will note your answer and be done by 2:30 and you'll be more screwed than you ever realized could be possible.
They don't have the article available online but it's worth tracking down the dead-tree version:
American Heritage of Invention and Technology Winter 2004 "Doing the Impossible" by Tim Palucka Reducing auto emissions by 90 percent in a few years looked easy to Congress. To engineers, it looked hopeless--until a few miraculous breakthroughs made the catalytic converter possible.
If you want to keep some of your stuff but don't necessarily need access to it on a daily basis you might want to get a public storage locker.
Another thing you can do is put stuff up on ebay and make money while you gradually clear out your stuff.
Lose the 6x6 table (or uncrew the legs and put it in the aforementioned storage); a 3x5 footer can fit against a wall when you don't have company over.
When I do spring cleaning I look at something and try to decide if I've actually used it in the last year. If not, out it goes.
I'm in one the states (CA,MA,ME,NY,VT) that has new car emmision standards set too high for mercedes or vw to meet currently with their diesels. The other 45 states do have diesels available, you're right.
Oddly, the US allows zillions of diesel vehicles on the road, they just have to be trucks over a certain weight class (8500 lbs?).
Why entire fleets of smelly diesel trucks are allowed but a nearly pollution-free jetta or mercedes diesel is a no-no is beyond my comprehension.
Low-sulfur diesel is supposed to be introduced to the US in the next couple of years to allow for catalytic converters on diesels. Hopefully, this will make it easier for manufacturers to meet emissions standards for passenger cars. Even more hopefully, new trucks will be required to meet the same standards...ah, keep dreaming.
Just speculating...the ID may have been correct, but maybe they moved to california a year ago.
It's disheartening to entertain a pessimistic possibility like that but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing happens on a regular basis. I think you did the right thing by referring them to Red Cross. They are in a position to evaluate this couple's predicament more carefully and have much greater resources for truly assisting their legitimate hardship.
It seems like it was yesterday, or maybe 20 years ago, but I seem to recall that Apple tried to sue microsoft for stealing several aspects of its GUI, like the trash can, folders, and the assignment of operations to specific menus like File and Edit.
Apple lost that lawsuit when the Judge held that GUIs and their look and feel could not be patented or copyrighted, so it seems like that could be used as a precedent in their favor on this lawsuit.
I think microsoft doesn't want people to think about a windows PC as a gaming machine...that's what the Xbox is for.
The get-the-facts stuff is oriented to corporate use because then msft can get follow-on money for all their office, exchange, and corporate apps and servers.
It's a lies anyway...it just something that an IT dept manager can print out and give to his PHB and say, look, here's some research about why shouldn't change anything. Now the IT dept manager can keep writing checks to microsoft and not have to do any real work like installing linux and trying it out.
How would revving all the generators up for 4 hours decrease the likelyhood of something being 1/2 cycle off? Seems like it would actually increase the chance of such a problem.
Leap seconds Leap seconds have real consequences. When a leap second is inserted, every AC generator on the grid has to make 60 extra turns. And they do. It takes about four hours for them to catch up.
That's so funny. Working so hard to keep a bunch of clock radios from getting off by one second...on most models you can't even set the seconds.
While having lots of cables to run all kinds of signals everywhere is a really cool idea, don't forget that while you have the drywall off it's a really good time to think about efficiency. Heating oil could be really expensive in the near future and the electricity to run your a/c isn't exactly going to get cheaper. A clever house is one that doesn't waste energy.
insulate like crazy. additional stud thickness, vapor barrier, expanding foam around every box or hole in the wall, insulate the hot water pipes (and cold depending on climate), insulate an attached garage even
shorten the runs of ductwork as much as possible, avoid running them through uninsulated attic or basement space (i have this problem)
upgrade to high SEER a/c compressors and high rated burners. climate may indicate heat pump.
use electric dampers or a zone system to turn off HVAC to unused rooms. i have my zones on individual timer/thermostats.
whole house fans are pretty cheap and can save a lot of money on a/c. swamp coolers are kind of white trash but work okay in some areas.
not sure about attic fans. usually if you have good attic insulation and gable vents and soffet vents you're fine, but if you have a large uninsulated attic with a lot of floor area in contact with living space it might help
thermo pane windows! not just double glazed, but the kind with an e-coating to cut down IR transmission through the glass, and no wood frames, they warp and leak within 3 years.
awnings don't last very long, but roof-like overhangs over south-facing windows are a good alternative.
find a good location for a wireless outdoor thermometer so you can monitor temperature and humidity well enough to intelligently choose whether to use the whole house fan/attic fan/swamp cooler/heat pump or a/c that day. or just leave the windows open if it's going to be 70 that day.
swap out electric range, oven, water heater, dryer, for natural gas or propane. swap out electric heat (baseboard or cental) for whatever fuel is cheapest in your area.
Next thing to do in the cleverness front is to actively protect the house. Some of this will indeed involve wiring:
central-station monitored alarm and sensors on all doors and windows, don't forget fire and smoke alarms (county inspector probably won't let you for get the last two)
if it's an unoccupied cabin/second house you'll also want flooding and freeze alarms
outdoor lighting. maybe the automatic IR sensor kind, maybe plain old switch kind.
go crazy and wire up some video cameras. these can feed into a server so you can check what's going on around the house even when you're away.
actual deadbolts with reinforced doors and frames on all doors. double cylinder if next to a window or window-in-the foor but for gosh sakes let everyone know where the key is.
2 or more fire extinguishers on every floor (near the exits)
evacuation plan (esp for kids) very important if you have any rooms that require more than one turn to reach an external door. doors to wooden patios don't count! and rope ladders for 2nd floor bedrooms
Anyway, I just want to express that there is more to a smart house than just internet and audio/video.
Well, one cool thing about macs is that when your mac breaks, they are engineered so well that everyone else's mac of the same model and year breaks in the same way.
No joke, you get 2500 people complaining about a problem and they will share workarounds on macintouch and present a fairly strong front to apple, who usually cave in after a while and extend the warranty for the issue.
I would think it possible for a free hosting site to run some sort of scan over pages as they are uploaded just to see that they are plain old HTML. Maybe even disallow links to financial institutions (to prevent some obvious phishing). Disallow CGI and form elements until the pages have been reviewed by a human.
I remember the teraks running UCSD P-system. There was a large and obtuse Sigma 7. Some VAX thingy. And a great sea of monochrome terminals with not a single mouse, web page, or CD-ROM in the whole building.
Send out a company-wide email reminding employees about the corporate policy against bringing wireless access points from home. Ask anyone who has one to please disconnect it and remove it from the premises thank you for your cooperation etc etc.
Worker bees will comply almost instantly. If it's still on the air by that evening, start looking in manager offices. If you can at least isolate it to one floor you should be able to just LOOK for it. It's connected to the network, right? Follow some ethernet cables and you'll eventually find it. It's not like they would hide it in a metal filing cabinet.
And when you do find it, don't be an @$$ about it. Just remind the misguided soul that this is against corporate IT policy and we'll be happy to extend a supported AP into the ceiling near you on monday.
One problem that has been identified is that a fairly scary percentage of students go to school hungry. Learning on an empty stomach is quite difficult. The solution is fairly simple: provide breakfast at school (similar to the way lunch is provided). But food costs money so this effort hasn't gotten very far.
The real sad cases are when the kids who come in w/o having had breakfast sometimes complain that they didn't get any dinner the night before either.
Obviously, the problem is more severe in poor/urban areas...so the rich white parents who vote and contribute to campaigns tend not to bring this up at PTA meetings so much.
There is a legal theory that fits the situation: computer viruses could be declared a public nuisance (which is essentially what they are at this point) and then it IS the responsibility of the victim to protect himself.
Slashdot Mirror
Wireless Weather Rock -- Tie a rock to a rope and hang the rope from a
piece of wood stuck in the ground.
If rock is wet: It is raining
If rock is white: It is snowing
If you can only see top half of rock: It is really snowing
If white things are bouncing off side of rock: It is hailing
If you can see shadow of rock: It is sunny
No shadow: It is overcast
If you cannot see rock: It is night time
If rock is slowly swinging back and forth: It is windy
If rock is pulling rope horizontal: It is a hurricane
If rock, rope, and stick are gone: There was a tornado
Is a definition that would make sense in other solar systems, too.
How about, big enough that its gravity could retain an atmosphere?
Why not tap the power of lightning directly?
Okay, there will be some engineering issues since pretty much anything that interacts with lightning gets burnt to a crisp, but fusion has some similar technical problems so this isn't totally left field.
(a) how much actual power does lightning provide over, say, the continentaly US?
(b) what kinds of structures could be built/flown to tap into the electric charges in clouds?
I would actually recommend not even scanning a network *with* written authorization. The customer can scan it and send you a report if they want.
I personally know someone who was sent to prison for 6 months for scanning, finding a vulnerability, and informing the site admin. The guy didn't ask for money to fix it or anything.
Prosecutors and juries are simply not in tune with "hacker ethics". The guy in the expensive suit will just ask if you did scan or didn't, the 12 people in casual clothing will note your answer and be done by 2:30 and you'll be more screwed than you ever realized could be possible.
They don't have the article available online but it's worth tracking down the dead-tree version:
American Heritage of Invention and Technology
Winter 2004
"Doing the Impossible" by Tim Palucka
Reducing auto emissions by 90 percent in a few years looked easy to Congress. To engineers, it looked hopeless--until a few miraculous breakthroughs made the catalytic converter possible.
>> the acid rain would kill us all by 1990. But I
>> was busy with work and didn't notice the end of
>> everything. How was it?
They actually *did* something about it and mandated pollution controls on coal-fired plants. You were probably too busy with work to notice that too.
If you want to keep some of your stuff but don't necessarily need access to it on a daily basis you might want to get a public storage locker.
Another thing you can do is put stuff up on ebay and make money while you gradually clear out your stuff.
Lose the 6x6 table (or uncrew the legs and put it in the aforementioned storage); a 3x5 footer can fit against a wall when you don't have company over.
When I do spring cleaning I look at something and try to decide if I've actually used it in the last year. If not, out it goes.
I'm in one the states (CA,MA,ME,NY,VT) that has new car emmision standards set too high for mercedes or vw to meet currently with their diesels. The other 45 states do have diesels available, you're right.
Oddly, the US allows zillions of diesel vehicles on the road, they just have to be trucks over a certain weight class (8500 lbs?).
Why entire fleets of smelly diesel trucks are allowed but a nearly pollution-free jetta or mercedes diesel is a no-no is beyond my comprehension.
Low-sulfur diesel is supposed to be introduced to the US in the next couple of years to allow for catalytic converters on diesels. Hopefully, this will make it easier for manufacturers to meet emissions standards for passenger cars. Even more hopefully, new trucks will be required to meet the same standards...ah, keep dreaming.
Just speculating...the ID may have been correct, but maybe they moved to california a year ago.
It's disheartening to entertain a pessimistic possibility like that but I'm pretty sure that kind of thing happens on a regular basis. I think you did the right thing by referring them to Red Cross. They are in a position to evaluate this couple's predicament more carefully and have much greater resources for truly assisting their legitimate hardship.
It seems like it was yesterday, or maybe 20 years ago, but I seem to recall that Apple tried to sue microsoft for stealing several aspects of its GUI, like the trash can, folders, and the assignment of operations to specific menus like File and Edit.
Apple lost that lawsuit when the Judge held that GUIs and their look and feel could not be patented or copyrighted, so it seems like that could be used as a precedent in their favor on this lawsuit.
I think microsoft doesn't want people to think about a windows PC as a gaming machine...that's what the Xbox is for.
The get-the-facts stuff is oriented to corporate use because then msft can get follow-on money for all their office, exchange, and corporate apps and servers.
It's a lies anyway...it just something that an IT dept manager can print out and give to his PHB and say, look, here's some research about why shouldn't change anything. Now the IT dept manager can keep writing checks to microsoft and not have to do any real work like installing linux and trying it out.
How would revving all the generators up for 4 hours decrease the likelyhood of something being 1/2 cycle off? Seems like it would actually increase the chance of such a problem.
That's so funny. Working so hard to keep a bunch of clock radios from getting off by one second...on most models you can't even set the seconds.
Next thing to do in the cleverness front is to actively protect the house. Some of this will indeed involve wiring:
Anyway, I just want to express that there is more to a smart house than just internet and audio/video.
What kind of ringtones does that bad boy got?!
Well, one cool thing about macs is that when your mac breaks, they are engineered so well that everyone else's mac of the same model and year breaks in the same way.
No joke, you get 2500 people complaining about a problem and they will share workarounds on macintouch and present a fairly strong front to apple, who usually cave in after a while and extend the warranty for the issue.
Try that with dell.
I would think it possible for a free hosting site to run some sort of scan over pages as they are uploaded just to see that they are plain old HTML. Maybe even disallow links to financial institutions (to prevent some obvious phishing). Disallow CGI and form elements until the pages have been reviewed by a human.
Chin up! Sometimes a good starship engineer has to also be a good social engineer.
would have been '82 for me.
trailers were all gone by then.
Ah, UCI.
I remember the teraks running UCSD P-system. There was a large and obtuse Sigma 7. Some VAX thingy. And a great sea of monochrome terminals with not a single mouse, web page, or CD-ROM in the whole building.
Good times.
firefox/firefly I'm getting really confused...
Send out a company-wide email reminding employees about the corporate policy against bringing wireless access points from home. Ask anyone who has one to please disconnect it and remove it from the premises thank you for your cooperation etc etc.
Worker bees will comply almost instantly. If it's still on the air by that evening, start looking in manager offices. If you can at least isolate it to one floor you should be able to just LOOK for it. It's connected to the network, right? Follow some ethernet cables and you'll eventually find it. It's not like they would hide it in a metal filing cabinet.
And when you do find it, don't be an @$$ about it. Just remind the misguided soul that this is against corporate IT policy and we'll be happy to extend a supported AP into the ceiling near you on monday.
One problem that has been identified is that a fairly scary percentage of students go to school hungry. Learning on an empty stomach is quite difficult. The solution is fairly simple: provide breakfast at school (similar to the way lunch is provided). But food costs money so this effort hasn't gotten very far.
The real sad cases are when the kids who come in w/o having had breakfast sometimes complain that they didn't get any dinner the night before either.
Obviously, the problem is more severe in poor/urban areas...so the rich white parents who vote and contribute to campaigns tend not to bring this up at PTA meetings so much.
There is a legal theory that fits the situation: computer viruses could be declared a public nuisance (which is essentially what they are at this point) and then it IS the responsibility of the victim to protect himself.