when I said that they were not out in Japan yet, I was referring to the particular handsets mentioned in the article.
But I take your point about like features being available on other handsets. I still think we're not likely to see them 'worldwide' as early as the writer suggests.
While in the USA, multiple different companies went off and developed multiple, incompatible systems (which weren't particularly future-proof), and Telcos even implemented different networks in different parts of the country, the Europeans got together and developed GSM (Global System for Mobile telecommunications), which I'm sure you've heard of by now.
They actually bothered to implement things like inter-network and overseas roaming, and anticipate the need for an upgrade path for future requirements. They also assigned and reserved radio spectrum across Europe, and much of Asia followed suit.
Meanwhile, the USA hadn't reserved the same spectrums, so even when US operators decided that the bigger GSM handset market was a good thing to be involved with, handsets from Europe and Asia still couldn't be used because they had to be modified to work on different frequencies!
It's one case where an unregulated, free and open market has been quite detrimental to consumers, and in fact the whole country.
Hold on, we're almost half-way through 2004 already, they're not even out in Japan yet; the USA still hasn't managed to convert to GSM let alone UMTS or any other 3G standard, there's probably a tonne of localisation to do, and you're expecting to see these things worldwide in 2005?
We suggested the idea of an "eight year-old space life form" to the designer -- we didn't want to make it too similar to a human. In the background, as well, lay an idea passed down from the man whose work forms the foundation of the Japanese robot industry, Masahiro Mori: "the valley of eeriness". If your design is too close to human form, at a certain point it becomes just too . . . uncanny. So, while we created QRIO in a human image, we also wanted to give it little bit of a "spaceman" feel.
Do you also support compulsory seat-belt laws for drivers and passengers in motor vehicles?
I don't really understand why you would not support mandatory helmet laws, particularly if you think helmet use is a good idea. Genuinely interested in your reasons.
(The only thing I can think of is special medical reasons - our laws have provisions for exemptions via doctor's certificates, and similar provisions are made for seatbelts. Would hope your local/state laws have similar.)
I've been saved from serious head injury by a helmet at least once, and I'm damn glad I was wearing one.
The parent poster made comments to the effect that in the USA, only people with $$$ (~$100!?!) can afford them.
In Australia, we have mandatory bicycle helmet laws, and all helmets must be certified to the national standard.
A side-effect of the resulting increase in demand for helmets (albeit artificially created) has been a larger market, and more competition. Here I can buy a decent-quality, comfortable and lightweight helmet less than US$30 equiv; and such an item has already saved my head.
Singapore has not only quarantined a few hundred people now, they have now closed all schools (pre-school, primary and secondary - but not universities) until April 6.
Singapore's Straits Times has the story. (Be aware that being largely a state-controlled news source, it downplays the risk in the "national interest" (now doesn't that sound familiar...))
IANANE (network engineer), so I'll concede that there's gaps here.
My point is that it's nowhere near as simple as sending out some sort of route advertisement advertising next hop to 0.0.0.0 is MAC xx:xx:xx from your cable modem, as the parent post would seem to imply.
TCP is a connection oriented protocol. You can have all the ACL's around it you want. There's nothing at all stopping you from forging packets with src and dest headers.
Sure thing. But in the BGP implementations that I've seen and talked about, ACLs & config generally are setup in such a way that the BGP sessions (and associated IP addr) are bound to a specific interface, which is generally NOT the interface used for internal traffic (our friend's cable modem, for instance). In the case of a BGP session that's not running over a point-to-point link, you're usually using some sort of tunnelling, and again it's not the sort of thing that Mr Domestic-Cablemodem-User is going to get anywhere near.
Point A) There's bugs in BGP. [...] When you mix the two, you get a fantasic flap. This has happened.
Point B) Route dampening. Enough said.
Points taken. But again my original post is in relation to the idea of "some little bastard at home" being able to get anywhere near a BGP session, and both of these is only possible if he does. I still maintain that if he is able to do so, it's more the result of a grossly misconfigured system than any flaw in the protocol.
Too bad this has happened. repeatedly. And often. I specifcally remember a mis-configured router in korea announcing the more specifics to a top 10 internet property and taking them down.
Would be interested in the specifics. But again, what's a "mis-configured router in korea" doing listening to advertisements from "some bastard at home"? You answer the question yourself - it's misconfigured.
My point is that the problems appear to arise from gross misconfigurations rather than any flaw in the system itself. Adding some sort of "digital authentication mechanism" won't fix this - network admins should already be aware that by establishing a BGP session with a particular address they're specifying that the routing information supplied should be trusted within the defined constraints. Good network admins will carefully configure these constraints and ensure that the path is secure.
BGP is a connection-oriented protocol that runs over TCP. A BGP session is set up between two routers when the router's administrators tell those routers eacho other's IP addresses. Things like Access Lists and Filters control what is transmitted and received - it's not open slather (unless it's very poorly configured.)
BGP generally runs on major network routers only - often called Border routers - and these are the routers that interface one large network with another.
This is why BGP is called an Exterior Routing Protocol, as opposed to an Interior Routing Protocol - it's used for one large network (generally an ISP or something of that size) to talk to another. Within that large network an Interior Routing Protocol like EIGRP, OSPF or RIP is used.
The chances of "some little bastard at home" being able to get anywhere near a router running BGP is slim at best.
When I first got 802.11 at home, I had it on an Acer TravelMate 342T (provided by work). Occasionally I'd take it into the bathroom to play MP3s while I showered.
I certainly did it more than 4 times, and I didn't notice any condensation behind the screen or 'cruddy goo' anywhere. It did eventually develop a keyboard fault after I leant out of the shower to answer an ICQ message, without first drying my hands:P
i played with one at a trade fair 2 weeks ago. to be honest, i was disappointed with the image quality. it has no builtin flash, and it performs badly in low indoor lighting.
max res is 640x480. basically expect not much more from it than you would from a webcam capable of that res. perhaps a little more clarity.
i'm not really impatiently waiting for the 'service', i'm impatiently waiting for the upgrade. in fact i'm annoyed that they're not letting me upgrade... the software is ready and waiting (released to most of the rest of the world 4 months ago), the only reason they won't give it to me is cauz they don't want to hurt sales of the 'new model' once it comes out (and i'm suspecting they're holding off on that until they get rid of old stock;)
According to SonyEricsson filings to the FCC, the hardware of the T68i is identical to that of the T68 - it's just a new cover, new back, and different coloured LEDs behind the keypad.
The rest of the differences are in the software. In most markets that T68i is available in, SonyEricsson have made a software update available for the T68 - effectively transforming it into a T68i. The software upgrade has been available in most of Europe and Asia for a few months now. Down here in Australia, we're still waiting for it and the T68i to be officially released.
There are currently two different models of snap-on cameras ("CommuniCam") for these phones.
The original CommuniCam is the MCA-10, which works with the original T68 and a few of Ericsson's older phones.
The new model is the the MCA-20, which currently works only with the T68i, afaik.
The older model has an inbuilt viewfinder, and most of the 'brains' are within the camera itself - the phone is little more than a data device. The newer model has no inbuilt viewfinder - you do the viewfinding on the phone screen itself. More of the processing has been moved into the phone; so the phone now stores the images internally, and can use them for MMS (multimedia messaging), screen backgrounds, caller number presentation, etc.
It's part of marketing Linux to the stupid people - ie, the ones who use Microsoft stuff now.
One of the advantages of Linux (and often other Open Source stuff, and other UNIXes) is that you need to have a clue to be able to make it work. So it follows that you have a higher proportion of clued people using/administrating/developing etc on Linux than you do on the M$ crap.
Stupid people think that you buy the product (the latest incarnation of Windows, IIS or whatever), plug it in, and it's "secure" - or whatever else it's been touted as. Clued people understand that there's more to it.
And that, I think, is why most Linux (or BSD or whatever else) installations tend to work better - they've been done by someone with CLUE.
Coders are a diverse bunch, really. This type of thing works for doctors, lawyers etc because they're a tightly regulated group of 'professionals' - you basically need to belong to an association to legally practice.
With coding, there's no such restriction, and many of us like it that way. Anyone who has the brains and inclination to learn can sit down at a system and punch out some code. What motivates one coder can be very different to another; there are quite a few who enjoy wreaking havoc, and there are also those who simply do it for the money. One person's idea of bad code is probably not the same as another's.
For this sort of thing to work, it'd have to be an across-the-profession thing. And since software writers aren't regulated or 'licenced', having them all belong to the same organisation and association is never going to happen. Start this sort of thing up, and any employer who has a problem will simply hire a programmer who hasn't "taken the oath".
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when I said that they were not out in Japan yet, I was referring to the particular handsets mentioned in the article.
But I take your point about like features being available on other handsets. I still think we're not likely to see them 'worldwide' as early as the writer suggests.
It's your regulatory environment.
While in the USA, multiple different companies went off and developed multiple, incompatible systems (which weren't particularly future-proof), and Telcos even implemented different networks in different parts of the country, the Europeans got together and developed GSM (Global System for Mobile telecommunications), which I'm sure you've heard of by now.
They actually bothered to implement things like inter-network and overseas roaming, and anticipate the need for an upgrade path for future requirements. They also assigned and reserved radio spectrum across Europe, and much of Asia followed suit.
Meanwhile, the USA hadn't reserved the same spectrums, so even when US operators decided that the bigger GSM handset market was a good thing to be involved with, handsets from Europe and Asia still couldn't be used because they had to be modified to work on different frequencies!
It's one case where an unregulated, free and open market has been quite detrimental to consumers, and in fact the whole country.
Hold on, we're almost half-way through 2004 already, they're not even out in Japan yet; the USA still hasn't managed to convert to GSM let alone UMTS or any other 3G standard, there's probably a tonne of localisation to do, and you're expecting to see these things worldwide in 2005?
You must be joking, right?
here
Megawati Sukarnoputri is a dictator and mass-murderer?
Interesting, thanks for that.
Do you also support compulsory seat-belt laws for drivers and passengers in motor vehicles?
I don't really understand why you would not support mandatory helmet laws, particularly if you think helmet use is a good idea. Genuinely interested in your reasons.
(The only thing I can think of is special medical reasons - our laws have provisions for exemptions via doctor's certificates, and similar provisions are made for seatbelts. Would hope your local/state laws have similar.)
I've been saved from serious head injury by a helmet at least once, and I'm damn glad I was wearing one.
The parent poster made comments to the effect that in the USA, only people with $$$ (~$100!?!) can afford them.
In Australia, we have mandatory bicycle helmet laws, and all helmets must be certified to the national standard.
A side-effect of the resulting increase in demand for helmets (albeit artificially created) has been a larger market, and more competition. Here I can buy a decent-quality, comfortable and lightweight helmet less than US$30 equiv; and such an item has already saved my head.
They're plastic fish! This is nothing new, you can buy these cases off the shelf.
... for example, China, it's all the other way around: least-specific to most-specific; as opposed to your most-specific to least-specific system :)
;)
Hey, maybe you could think of it as little-endian and big-endian?
Singapore has not only quarantined a few hundred people now, they have now closed all schools (pre-school, primary and secondary - but not universities) until April 6.
Singapore's Straits Times has the story. (Be aware that being largely a state-controlled news source, it downplays the risk in the "national interest" (now doesn't that sound familiar...))
No, sorry. YOU'RE talking out of your ass.
IANANE (network engineer), so I'll concede that there's gaps here.
My point is that it's nowhere near as simple as sending out some sort of route advertisement advertising next hop to 0.0.0.0 is MAC xx:xx:xx from your cable modem, as the parent post would seem to imply.
TCP is a connection oriented protocol. You can have all the ACL's around it you want. There's nothing at all stopping you from forging packets with src and dest headers.
Sure thing. But in the BGP implementations that I've seen and talked about, ACLs & config generally are setup in such a way that the BGP sessions (and associated IP addr) are bound to a specific interface, which is generally NOT the interface used for internal traffic (our friend's cable modem, for instance). In the case of a BGP session that's not running over a point-to-point link, you're usually using some sort of tunnelling, and again it's not the sort of thing that Mr Domestic-Cablemodem-User is going to get anywhere near.
Point A) There's bugs in BGP. [...] When you mix the two, you get a fantasic flap. This has happened.
Point B) Route dampening. Enough said.
Points taken. But again my original post is in relation to the idea of "some little bastard at home" being able to get anywhere near a BGP session, and both of these is only possible if he does. I still maintain that if he is able to do so, it's more the result of a grossly misconfigured system than any flaw in the protocol.
Too bad this has happened. repeatedly. And often. I specifcally remember a mis-configured router in korea announcing the more specifics to a top 10 internet property and taking them down.
Would be interested in the specifics. But again, what's a "mis-configured router in korea" doing listening to advertisements from "some bastard at home"? You answer the question yourself - it's misconfigured.
My point is that the problems appear to arise from gross misconfigurations rather than any flaw in the system itself. Adding some sort of "digital authentication mechanism" won't fix this - network admins should already be aware that by establishing a BGP session with a particular address they're specifying that the routing information supplied should be trusted within the defined constraints. Good network admins will carefully configure these constraints and ensure that the path is secure.
No, sorry - you're talking out of your ass.
BGP is a connection-oriented protocol that runs over TCP. A BGP session is set up between two routers when the router's administrators tell those routers eacho other's IP addresses. Things like Access Lists and Filters control what is transmitted and received - it's not open slather (unless it's very poorly configured.)
BGP generally runs on major network routers only - often called Border routers - and these are the routers that interface one large network with another.
This is why BGP is called an Exterior Routing Protocol, as opposed to an Interior Routing Protocol - it's used for one large network (generally an ISP or something of that size) to talk to another. Within that large network an Interior Routing Protocol like EIGRP, OSPF or RIP is used.
The chances of "some little bastard at home" being able to get anywhere near a router running BGP is slim at best.
obviously they've never heard of pineapple juice :)
When I first got 802.11 at home, I had it on an Acer TravelMate 342T (provided by work). Occasionally I'd take it into the bathroom to play MP3s while I showered.
:P
I certainly did it more than 4 times, and I didn't notice any condensation behind the screen or 'cruddy goo' anywhere. It did eventually develop a keyboard fault after I leant out of the shower to answer an ICQ message, without first drying my hands
i played with one at a trade fair 2 weeks ago. to be honest, i was disappointed with the image quality. it has no builtin flash, and it performs badly in low indoor lighting.
max res is 640x480. basically expect not much more from it than you would from a webcam capable of that res. perhaps a little more clarity.
*grins*
;)
nah. i'm just a genuine freak.
i'm not really impatiently waiting for the 'service', i'm impatiently waiting for the upgrade. in fact i'm annoyed that they're not letting me upgrade... the software is ready and waiting (released to most of the rest of the world 4 months ago), the only reason they won't give it to me is cauz they don't want to hurt sales of the 'new model' once it comes out (and i'm suspecting they're holding off on that until they get rid of old stock
According to SonyEricsson filings to the FCC, the hardware of the T68i is identical to that of the T68 - it's just a new cover, new back, and different coloured LEDs behind the keypad.
The rest of the differences are in the software. In most markets that T68i is available in, SonyEricsson have made a software update available for the T68 - effectively transforming it into a T68i. The software upgrade has been available in most of Europe and Asia for a few months now. Down here in Australia, we're still waiting for it and the T68i to be officially released.
There are currently two different models of snap-on cameras ("CommuniCam") for these phones.
The original CommuniCam is the MCA-10, which works with the original T68 and a few of Ericsson's older phones.
The new model is the the MCA-20, which currently works only with the T68i, afaik.
The older model has an inbuilt viewfinder, and most of the 'brains' are within the camera itself - the phone is little more than a data device. The newer model has no inbuilt viewfinder - you do the viewfinding on the phone screen itself. More of the processing has been moved into the phone; so the phone now stores the images internally, and can use them for MMS (multimedia messaging), screen backgrounds, caller number presentation, etc.
Funny, I skimmed that topic and read it as "Neverwinter Nights is Cold".
And it thought "yes, i bet they are..."
It took me a few seconds to make sense of it all.
It's part of marketing Linux to the stupid people - ie, the ones who use Microsoft stuff now.
One of the advantages of Linux (and often other Open Source stuff, and other UNIXes) is that you need to have a clue to be able to make it work. So it follows that you have a higher proportion of clued people using/administrating/developing etc on Linux than you do on the M$ crap.
Stupid people think that you buy the product (the latest incarnation of Windows, IIS or whatever), plug it in, and it's "secure" - or whatever else it's been touted as. Clued people understand that there's more to it.
And that, I think, is why most Linux (or BSD or whatever else) installations tend to work better - they've been done by someone with CLUE.
oh, umm... *blush* but i was more referring to things like bar association, and the idea of lawyer-client confidentiality.
and who's to say that the next person they hire is going to take the same 'moral' stance and quit too?
it'd need to be across-the-board. and that's not going to happen.
end of story, move along please.
Coders are a diverse bunch, really. This type of thing works for doctors, lawyers etc because they're a tightly regulated group of 'professionals' - you basically need to belong to an association to legally practice.
With coding, there's no such restriction, and many of us like it that way. Anyone who has the brains and inclination to learn can sit down at a system and punch out some code. What motivates one coder can be very different to another; there are quite a few who enjoy wreaking havoc, and there are also those who simply do it for the money. One person's idea of bad code is probably not the same as another's.
For this sort of thing to work, it'd have to be an across-the-profession thing. And since software writers aren't regulated or 'licenced', having them all belong to the same organisation and association is never going to happen. Start this sort of thing up, and any employer who has a problem will simply hire a programmer who hasn't "taken the oath".
actually, these days, moot of Salon's more interesting articles are pay-only (eg: this one.