Wikipedia has a nice, but tiny list of major recent flares, that will give you an idea. It looks like on a decade scale, X2 is pretty minor. Apparently they estimate the largest observed flare to be an X45.
I think the last thing anybody wants is one or more government's interfering with the Internet.
Perhaps the best solution would just be to define "Internet Access" as a utility that provides unrestricted use of an Internet connection. Just like the power company can't introduce fancy tech to prevent me from powering a TV if it does something the electric company doesn't like, if I'm paying for a service, I should be able to use it as I see fit. I personally think that companies shouldn't be able to advertise a service as "Internet" if they are blocking certain sites, certain ports, or other services I may wish to access.
It is just ridiculous that to be able to connect to something on Port 25, I have to pay twice as much for a "business" account. What is happening here is that corporations are trying to "Re-AOL" the Internet so that it conforms to their business models.
It is almost like they are bringing back "AOL Keywords" in a much more "under-the-radar" way. How long before ebay just says "type e into Google!" once they have the contract nailed down. Perhaps there will also be a subliminal effect- maybe not in with freaky effectiveness, but definitely enough so everybody who searches for something beginning with "e" will have Ebay, Expedia, etc. at the top of their mind when transitioning to the next thing to search for.
I'm sorry, but if you have a kid that for some awful reason, you've given an iPhone, and they are looking up dirty (F$#K!) in a dictionary app, and they are not of the age when they are hearing it on a daily basis from their peers anyway (11) then:
1. You have already failed as a parent. Please have your children report to the nearest hospital in Nebraska. Do not bring them there, they can safely traverse the distance- you cannot. A major meth incident is about to go down, and an infant can probably dodge strangers better than bullets. At least you can be confident that in 20 years, they'll have the knowledge and resources to ensure you don't get eaten by rabid animals. And frankly, you'll probably need the help.
or....
2. You are an uber-geek, your kids are probably uber-geeks. There's nothing you can do about it. Send them on the pilgrimage to Nebraska, and they'll end up starting a colony on Mars. Probably best to just let it go. They can handle a few dirty words- and still school the heck out of their peers. Congratulations- you'll never have to take the blame for a serial killer, and you'll be happy to take the credit when they nab the Nobel Prize.
So come on people, let's let evolution take its course. One dictionary at a time!
I've done a bit of B2B work, and eventually, most of my really successful clients start looking into technology investments, and like all tech-related business, they bring me in. I would say that out of the last 100 products I've reviewed for clients, 98 of which required having my lawyer parse through lengthy NDAs, 95 were "input devices", 90 were "mouse replacement" input devices, and 75 have failed- 20 are waiting to fail, 4 are **LONG** shots, and 1 has actually turned a profit. I'm just glad I recommended against everything but the profitable one, with the exception of one extremely qualified recommendation on one of the long shots- (i.e. you have a 2% chance of getting your money back, but if you make it through that lottery, it'll be 200 times what you put in)
Mice are like a gallon jug of milk. Everybody's got one, but they rarely stray from what they are used to when shopping, unless you can really blow somebody out of the water.
While many of your comparisons are inaccurate, alot of this does go on. Most of the GM models share a large quantity of componants, and usually the bodies are only slightly different. It's all part of making the manufacturing process less expensive. Just like huge metal presses can be fitted with different dies quickly to modify the output, many of the manufacturing lines themselves have the equivalent of a "Chevy / GMC" button on them.
One of the most impressive examples of this was a line that took the inner "sound dampening" portion of the hood, and attached it to the outer "looks nice" portion of the hood. Several different models could be produced by slightly changing the input material, and flipping a switch / pressing a button. The extra mile that goes into manufacturing the higher end domestic vehicles (Cadillac, in my experience) as well as the decreased tolerances for the parts really do make that extra dollar worthwhile. I remember when some cement was being removed from a shipping dock with several thousand 'Vette body parts nearby. A little dust got on them, and they had to be thrown away, no clean, no inspect, just melt 'em down and start over.
They absolutely do. It's called NUMMI, and is one of the great experiments in automotive manufacturing right now. Taking the best portions of Japanese and American methodology, and making some rock solid, inexpensive vehicles.
Keep in mind that FDIC insurance is a scam all of its own. Sure, you're insured up to $10,000 for your bank account, but the "insurance" pays out at pennies on the dollar.
Because of the high prices of duplicators, and the fact that I would have liked to be able to just feed the machine a bunch of blank disks and a couple of spindles of used disks, with different instructions for each disk to be copied, I came up with an interesting plan. I'd post a link if I could handle the slashdot effect, but you might be able to find something similar.
Basically, the idea was to use a 4'x8' table, a mini-ITX case with a bunch of external drives (some readers, some burners, depending on your needs) and an Automation Direct PLC with serial communication capability to set up a "pick and place" type system that could easily be scripted. I lost my motivation before I had the $2k it probably would have taken me to do it, but the plan was pretty solid.
I think the motivation behind it was an interesting ice cream vending machine I saw, which was more or less a box containing a consumer freezer, an arm to open the freezer, and a vacuum hose that would go to the proper coordinates, drop down, suck up the treat, and drop it into a chute.
Just think of the possibilities though. Thousands of blanks, matched with thousands of sources. It'd make a nifty interface for archival and automated backups, etc.
My personal favorite is when my relatives insist on typing in the full URL of the site they wish to visit in the search box of their favorite engine.. I can't recall the number of times I've shown them the address bar.
In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. Windows has holes that can allow a hacker to install almost anything on a computer that lacks a protective program or device called a firewall. Users' vulnerability can be compounded if they have not installed the latest patches from Microsoft.
Finally, its good to see it in the NYT. It was starting to get old seeing it on/. every day without anybody else picking it up....
I could understand this maybe, oh, two or three years ago- but not now. I run a dialup ISP that markets in these rural areas that have been previously without broadband, and the few places that it doesn't make sense for one of the wireless players to show up and take all of my business, are the same places where I can't even set up access because of the cost of installing even a fractional T1 is over $1K / month.
I guess I'm a mom and pop dialup, or at least just a one man operation with outsourced support, but I think that portion of my business will have to RIP within a few years with Netzero, wired broadband, and 802.11 networks chipping away at the customer base.
My latest market that I had to pull out my access numbers was, get this, a town with 300 people that one of the wireless broadband providers decided to set up a node in. I went from 200 customers to 20 within a matter of 6 months.
I'd rather just bank the profits and sell off all the equipment before I try and protect my markets by forcing users into contracts. Perhaps its time to just get out of that business entirely, and use my "billing week" to more productive ends.
What really wierded me out was the time I just said "WTF!" and hit the F1 key- And the computer continued.
Mind you this was not the "keyboard error" message, but rather the "no keyboard attached" error. I think my keyboard must have just been taking awhile to get going that first time...
I think to connect the hotel with the owner of the Dewey Decimal Classification system, the average person would have to believe something this idiotic could still be licensable...
We B&M about the EULA's we see. Some of them are pretty crappy, I'll admit. But has anyone ever heard of a lawsuit or other general harassment over someone breaking the terms of the EULA? By "the EULA" I mean ANY EULA....
I mean, I know I've done it. And in a way pretty conspicuous to the other party- never heard a thing. I know there were some marketing types that were raising hell within the company about it, but apparently their legal department had the same opinion I do regarding the enforceability of the "scary bits" of the EULA.
Personally, I think the "scary bits" are meant to be used as a deterrent for those who know so little about the law that the FUD get's to them.
Let's see- he's pretty much going to have to file for bankruptcy. If they get all the contributors to phynd to do the same, as the main debtor in the bankruptcy suit, would this mean they'd inherit all rights to the phynd source?
The fact that an MTU student was chosen leads me to believe that the RIAA isn't going to stop with the students. Perhaps they are hoping to receive a billion dollar judgement that the student will be unable to pay so that they may go after the university itself, citing that they allowed this sort of thing to go down on their networks, leaving the RIAA with a large amount of 'unrecoverable damages' Now, IANAL- but as a former MTU student, I have seen how much the school has "cooperated" with the RIAA. As early as 1998, I was removed from the dorm LAN due to my operation of an FTP server with an easily remembered password, which generated alot of traffic. By going after students early, MTU has opened themselves up to lawsuits due to making a pseudo-admission that they feel it is their responsibility to monitor the networks. Serves the 'U' right, in my opinion, for attempting to help the RIAA.
Possibly because cell phones operate on completely different frequencies and can reach much higher power levels than Wi-Fi?
As far as general interference is concerned, a slight frequency shift is not going to make any difference. Most digital cell phones nowadays actually transmit in the 2.4Ghz area, and while the frequencies are distinct, they are not significantly different from WiFi to create a different interference problem.
And as far as the power difference, cell phones automatically trim back their power when they are in favorable transmission conditions, such as, say, when you have direct line of sight with hundreds of towers from FL380. And on top of that- power/distance formula for electromagnetic waves will help you deduce that a 2.4872 Ghz carrier at 500mW (full power for every handheld phone I've owned in the past 5 years) will cause nearly identical interference to that of a 2.4025 Ghz carrier at 100mW. (common power for Wifi)
I've worked at quite a few companies that had radio controlled locomotives or overhead cranes, and many of them had a 'no cell phone on site' policy when cell phones first became popular. The claim was that they could interfere with equipment, creating a safety hazard (much like the airlines claim) After my supervisor asked me to research actual safety issues involved, and finding the protocols used for these digital radio control devices to be quite failsafe, it was determined by higher-ups that safety, in fact, wasn't an issue.
However, the no cell phone policy was redefined as 'except for business purposes' and the actual reasoning behind the original policy became obvious- they didn't want employees making personal calls during business hours. The policy was profit motivated, much as the airlines policy is. Yeah, they don't have in-seat phones on the little puddle jumpers- but they don't really want the customers to know what the motivation behind the policy is.
And before I get any responses about the FAA being the problem, not the airlines- remember, the government is a puppet of the corporations, and the FAA is definately NOT an exception.
That is the skill of learning new skills. Flexibility and adaptability will always be in demand.
Amen. Amen.
Knowing what I wanted to do early in life (high school) and having very specific goals (program robots) caused me unbelievable frustration during college. I left there having impressive math skills, a mediocre understanding of engineering and design, and an excellent ability to generate alot of understanding on a topic in a short period of time.
Now that I've been in the work force for 3 years, I know that only the ability to learn has helped me out more than a handful of times. And that's all that damn degree has been seen as by employers, a certificate that might as well be stamped 'trainable'
Slashdot Mirror
Wikipedia has a nice, but tiny list of major recent flares, that will give you an idea. It looks like on a decade scale, X2 is pretty minor. Apparently they estimate the largest observed flare to be an X45.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_flare
Section 4.5 is what your looking for.
I would have no problem with this if it weren't for the fact that it costs me $30+ a month more to opt out.
I think the last thing anybody wants is one or more government's interfering with the Internet.
Perhaps the best solution would just be to define "Internet Access" as a utility that provides unrestricted use of an Internet connection. Just like the power
company can't introduce fancy tech to prevent me from powering a TV if it does something the electric company doesn't like, if I'm paying for a service, I
should be able to use it as I see fit. I personally think that companies shouldn't be able to advertise a service as "Internet" if they are blocking certain sites,
certain ports, or other services I may wish to access.
It is just ridiculous that to be able to connect to something on Port 25, I have to pay twice as much for a "business" account. What is happening here is that
corporations are trying to "Re-AOL" the Internet so that it conforms to their business models.
It is almost like they are bringing back "AOL Keywords" in a much more "under-the-radar" way. How long before ebay just says "type e into Google!" once they have the contract nailed down. Perhaps there will also be a subliminal effect- maybe not in with freaky effectiveness, but definitely enough so everybody who searches for something beginning with "e" will have Ebay, Expedia, etc. at the top of their mind when transitioning to the next thing to search for.
I'm sorry, but if you have a kid that for some awful reason, you've given an iPhone, and they are looking up dirty (F$#K!) in a dictionary app, and they are not of the age when they are hearing it on a daily basis from their peers anyway (11) then:
1. You have already failed as a parent. Please have your children report to the nearest hospital in Nebraska. Do not bring them there, they can safely traverse the distance- you cannot. A major meth incident is about to go down, and an infant can probably dodge strangers better than bullets. At least you can be confident that in 20 years, they'll have the knowledge and resources to ensure you don't get eaten by rabid animals. And frankly, you'll probably need the help.
or....
2. You are an uber-geek, your kids are probably uber-geeks. There's nothing you can do about it. Send them on the pilgrimage to Nebraska, and they'll end up starting a colony on Mars. Probably best to just let it go. They can handle a few dirty words- and still school the heck out of their peers. Congratulations- you'll never have to take the blame for a serial killer, and you'll be happy to take the credit when they nab the Nobel Prize.
So come on people, let's let evolution take its course. One dictionary at a time!
I've done a bit of B2B work, and eventually, most of my really successful clients start looking into technology investments, and like all tech-related business, they bring me in. I would say that out of the last 100 products I've reviewed for clients, 98 of which required having my lawyer parse through lengthy NDAs, 95 were "input devices", 90 were "mouse replacement" input devices, and 75 have failed- 20 are waiting to fail, 4 are **LONG** shots, and 1 has actually turned a profit. I'm just glad I recommended against everything but the profitable one, with the exception of one extremely qualified recommendation on one of the long shots- (i.e. you have a 2% chance of getting your money back, but if you make it through that lottery, it'll be 200 times what you put in)
Mice are like a gallon jug of milk. Everybody's got one, but they rarely stray from what they are used to when shopping, unless you can really blow somebody out of the water.
While many of your comparisons are inaccurate, alot of this does go on. Most of the GM models share a large quantity of componants, and usually the bodies are only slightly different. It's all part of making the manufacturing process less expensive. Just like huge metal presses can be fitted with different dies quickly to modify the output, many of the manufacturing lines themselves have the equivalent of a "Chevy / GMC" button on them.
One of the most impressive examples of this was a line that took the inner "sound dampening" portion of the hood, and attached it to the outer "looks nice" portion of the hood. Several different models could be produced by slightly changing the input material, and flipping a switch / pressing a button. The extra mile that goes into manufacturing the higher end domestic vehicles (Cadillac, in my experience) as well as the decreased tolerances for the parts really do make that extra dollar worthwhile. I remember when some cement was being removed from a shipping dock with several thousand 'Vette body parts nearby. A little dust got on them, and they had to be thrown away, no clean, no inspect, just melt 'em down and start over.
They absolutely do. It's called NUMMI, and is one of the great experiments in automotive manufacturing right now. Taking the best portions of Japanese and American methodology, and making some rock solid, inexpensive vehicles.
Keep in mind that FDIC insurance is a scam all of its own. Sure, you're insured up to $10,000 for your bank account, but the "insurance" pays out at pennies on the dollar.
Because of the high prices of duplicators, and the fact that I would have liked to be able to just feed the machine a bunch of blank disks and a couple of spindles of used disks, with different instructions for each disk to be copied, I came up with an interesting plan. I'd post a link if I could handle the slashdot effect, but you might be able to find something similar.
Basically, the idea was to use a 4'x8' table, a mini-ITX case with a bunch of external drives (some readers, some burners, depending on your needs) and an Automation Direct PLC with serial communication capability to set up a "pick and place" type system that could easily be scripted. I lost my motivation before I had the $2k it probably would have taken me to do it, but the plan was pretty solid.
I think the motivation behind it was an interesting ice cream vending machine I saw, which was more or less a box containing a consumer freezer, an arm to open the freezer, and a vacuum hose that would go to the proper coordinates, drop down, suck up the treat, and drop it into a chute.
Just think of the possibilities though. Thousands of blanks, matched with thousands of sources. It'd make a nifty interface for archival and automated backups, etc.
My personal favorite is when my relatives insist on typing in the full URL of the site they wish to visit in the search box of their favorite engine.. I can't recall the number of times I've shown them the address bar.
In some ways, the biggest problem is Microsoft Windows itself. Windows has holes that can allow a hacker to install almost anything on a computer that lacks a protective program or device called a firewall. Users' vulnerability can be compounded if they have not installed the latest patches from Microsoft.
/. every day without anybody else picking it up....
Finally, its good to see it in the NYT. It was starting to get old seeing it on
It might just be time for a standard.
Really, the technical community needs to sit down and figure out a universal cross-platform benchmarking method.
I could understand this maybe, oh, two or three years ago- but not now. I run a dialup ISP that markets in these rural areas that have been previously without broadband, and the few places that it doesn't make sense for one of the wireless players to show up and take all of my business, are the same places where I can't even set up access because of the cost of installing even a fractional T1 is over $1K / month.
I guess I'm a mom and pop dialup, or at least just a one man operation with outsourced support, but I think that portion of my business will have to RIP within a few years with Netzero, wired broadband, and 802.11 networks chipping away at the customer base.
My latest market that I had to pull out my access numbers was, get this, a town with 300 people that one of the wireless broadband providers decided to set up a node in. I went from 200 customers to 20 within a matter of 6 months.
I'd rather just bank the profits and sell off all the equipment before I try and protect my markets by forcing users into contracts. Perhaps its time to just get out of that business entirely, and use my "billing week" to more productive ends.
If you do visit the "point" be sure to do so in the winter months, when you can get "Point Bock" their most wonderful brew ever.
What really wierded me out was the time I just said "WTF!" and hit the F1 key- And the computer continued.
Mind you this was not the "keyboard error" message, but rather the "no keyboard attached" error. I think my keyboard must have just been taking awhile to get going that first time...
I think to connect the hotel with the owner of the Dewey Decimal Classification system, the average person would have to believe something this idiotic could still be licensable...
I mean really-
We B&M about the EULA's we see. Some of them are pretty crappy, I'll admit. But has anyone ever heard of a lawsuit or other general harassment over someone breaking the terms of the EULA? By "the EULA" I mean ANY EULA....
I mean, I know I've done it. And in a way pretty conspicuous to the other party- never heard a thing. I know there were some marketing types that were raising hell within the company about it, but apparently their legal department had the same opinion I do regarding the enforceability of the "scary bits" of the EULA.
Personally, I think the "scary bits" are meant to be used as a deterrent for those who know so little about the law that the FUD get's to them.
Let's see- he's pretty much going to have to file for bankruptcy. If they get all the contributors to phynd to do the same, as the main debtor in the bankruptcy suit, would this mean they'd inherit all rights to the phynd source?
And I'm pretty sure the nearest kinko's is over 90 miles away from MTU... That place is in the middle of NOWHERE!
The fact that an MTU student was chosen leads me to believe that the RIAA isn't going to stop with the students. Perhaps they are hoping to receive a billion dollar judgement that the student will be unable to pay so that they may go after the university itself, citing that they allowed this sort of thing to go down on their networks, leaving the RIAA with a large amount of 'unrecoverable damages' Now, IANAL- but as a former MTU student, I have seen how much the school has "cooperated" with the RIAA. As early as 1998, I was removed from the dorm LAN due to my operation of an FTP server with an easily remembered password, which generated alot of traffic. By going after students early, MTU has opened themselves up to lawsuits due to making a pseudo-admission that they feel it is their responsibility to monitor the networks. Serves the 'U' right, in my opinion, for attempting to help the RIAA.
Forgive my US-Centrism, but I was speaking from a US perspective...
Takes battery off of currently held phone...
Yup.
Still in the 2.4 range...
Possibly because cell phones operate on completely different frequencies and can reach much higher power levels than Wi-Fi?
As far as general interference is concerned, a slight frequency shift is not going to make any difference. Most digital cell phones nowadays actually transmit in the 2.4Ghz area, and while the frequencies are distinct, they are not significantly different from WiFi to create a different interference problem.
And as far as the power difference, cell phones automatically trim back their power when they are in favorable transmission conditions, such as, say, when you have direct line of sight with hundreds of towers from FL380. And on top of that- power/distance formula for electromagnetic waves will help you deduce that a 2.4872 Ghz carrier at 500mW (full power for every handheld phone I've owned in the past 5 years) will cause nearly identical interference to that of a 2.4025 Ghz carrier at 100mW. (common power for Wifi)
I've worked at quite a few companies that had radio controlled locomotives or overhead cranes, and many of them had a 'no cell phone on site' policy when cell phones first became popular. The claim was that they could interfere with equipment, creating a safety hazard (much like the airlines claim) After my supervisor asked me to research actual safety issues involved, and finding the protocols used for these digital radio control devices to be quite failsafe, it was determined by higher-ups that safety, in fact, wasn't an issue.
However, the no cell phone policy was redefined as 'except for business purposes' and the actual reasoning behind the original policy became obvious- they didn't want employees making personal calls during business hours. The policy was profit motivated, much as the airlines policy is. Yeah, they don't have in-seat phones on the little puddle jumpers- but they don't really want the customers to know what the motivation behind the policy is.
And before I get any responses about the FAA being the problem, not the airlines- remember, the government is a puppet of the corporations, and the FAA is definately NOT an exception.
use really thin wire for your 'kite string' and then just fire it off directly. I've got 1000ft. of two strand laying around somewhere....
That is the skill of learning new skills. Flexibility and adaptability will always be in demand.
Amen. Amen.
Knowing what I wanted to do early in life (high school) and having very specific goals (program robots) caused me unbelievable frustration during college. I left there having impressive math skills, a mediocre understanding of engineering and design, and an excellent ability to generate alot of understanding on a topic in a short period of time.
Now that I've been in the work force for 3 years, I know that only the ability to learn has helped me out more than a handful of times. And that's all that damn degree has been seen as by employers, a certificate that might as well be stamped 'trainable'