I'm surprised how strongly some people react to others gathering statistics on what they do. Now, granted this is a private activity, watching tv in your own home. But I think that some people need to get over their self-inflated sense of "privacy" and "anonymity". Privacy is being allowed to go about your business without having your rights infringed upon by the state. Anonymity is a different matter. If you choose to use Tivo, and incredibly neat and useful gadget, you contribute to their ability to gather statistics. There's no invasion of privacy going on here, and try as you might, your "rights" are not being deprived (which I think some people forget in our individualistic society).
Eventually, every (smart) company that grows to serve more than a handful of people has to treat those customers as statistics, even though they may claim to be providing incredibly "personal" service.
Some companies are more sophisticated at using the information at their disposal, and employ teams of data miners to sift through for patterns that'll benefit their business. Others aren't so clever and lose out on those chances.
But in either case, why expect both anonymity *and* privacy? There is no constitutional right to either.
I don't understand why the average tv viewer won't try to learn tivo? It's so simple, and fun to use. All you have to do is:
1. Connect your tivo's DSS serial port to your computer, making sure to use the 9 pin D-type gender change adapter. 2. Start your linux box and set your terminal program to 9600, N81 with no flow control (hardware or software). Also make sure the COM port you're using in the terminal program matches
the COM port the TiVo is plugged into. 3. Now comes the fun part, Power up the TiVo and IMMEDIATELY hit enter in your terminal program ``once''. The timing on this is a tad tricky. If you're having trouble getting the timing
right you can press enter repeatedly, just be careful not to overshoot the prompt. 4. The TiVo will prompt you with a ``Verify: '' prompt. The password is ``factory'' (no quotes). The password was discovered by sorphin. This password seems to
work with some units. If your unit doesn't take the factory password see section 4.8 on how to change the password. 5. Finally, mounting partitions is as simple as e^pi: Enter the following to mount partition 4: mount/dev/hdX4/mnt where X is the letter representing the IDE port where the TiVo "A" drive is connected on your motherboard:
X = "b" (/dev/hdb4) -- if disk is setup as slave on primary IDE bus
X = "c" (/dev/hdc4) -- if disk is setup as master on secondary IDE bus.
X = "d" (/dev/hdd4) -- if disk is setup as slave on secondary IDE bus.
(Note that X will never be "a", master on the primary IDE bus.)
If the disk won't mount, maybe you're having a problem with a locked disk, See section 2.15 for information on how to unlock the disk.
Now type ``joe/mnt/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit'' (without the quotes).
(alternate). Instead of using an editor, you can type:
echo '/bin/bash &/dev/ttyS3 &' >>/mnt/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
(that's all one line, use the quotes, don't forget the ">>" -- using a single ">" instead will destroy/replace the entire file with the one line)
If you use "echo" rather than "joe", then skip to step 8.
Go to the bottom of the file and add the following on a line all by itself.
``/bin/bash &/dev/ttyS3 & '' (without the quotes)
.Save the changes. (CTRL-K CTRL-X)
Wasn't that easy, AND fun? Hey, where did you go? Come back here!
My question is: if someone wants to see the criteria they used to select "security honorees", will that code be open for viewing? How else can we be sure that such a powerful tool isn't being abused with biased/racially motivated lines of code??
And if the system does start working, does the security agent looking at your score get to see why the damn computer flagged you? Shouldn't they be able to see why it thinks you're a threat, and simply ask you some questions to clear up the situation?
For example, "Sir, the computer tells me that you fly a lot of last minute one-ways, can you explain why?" "Yes, I work for the State Department" "I see, if you can show me your ID, we'll be all set here."
People fall into the trap of thinking that something computerized will do it better. That's not true. It'll do it faster, but somebody's still got to make the programming decisions. And possibly, computers will make this kind of situation worse by decreasing the alertness of security officials! So many false hits are going to be generated, that the computer matches might lose credibility, or the security guys/gals will be flooded with people to question...
That sounds like something I certainly do not want for the future.
That's why astronomy is such a great way to develop these databases -- no one gives a crap about how many stars or galaxies you collect information on... They don't seem to care about privacy!
Take a look at that picture of the center of the galaxy again -- one of the biggest challenges to astronomy is how to catalogue every single object visible and create a rapidly searchable database. And that picture is not even 10% of the sky, in only one band! Astronomers are having to come up with new ways of loading, structuring, and searching multi-TB datasets to get incredible science out of the flood of data. The future of astronomy is in these multi-TB databases, in multiple wavelengths, which create the "National Virtual Observatory".
If you want to understand the science that these databases would make possible, imagine if your business had a searchable database of the entire population of the world, with parameters like age, height, weight, income, address, phone number, spending habits, and more, for every single person.
Have a look at this link for what some scientists think a virtual observatory will be capable of!
Think about this: the US military sends up approx. 10-20 satellites a year into space, and have you ever heard of them telling us when one is coming down? You can bet they try their hardest to keep any information from us, even if it threatens the public safety.
I'm sure they probably count on the odds that they crash over water, or some unpopulated area, and not notify anyone beforehand. Or if it does get hit something, they'll attribute it to some plane part falling off...:)
I have to agree here -- I don't think that crystalline structure alone will confer transparency on a material, especially metal. It has firstly to do with the properties of the atoms and molecules themselves, and maybe second the crystalline nature.
Why, then, would glass be transparent? Glass has a most uncrystalline structure!
At first glance, I found this to be an interesting story on its own, because of the way it addresses the boundaries that the digital world is creating as it goes. But in another way, it's also the most boring story I've ever heard, in that this is the most predictable storyline you could come across. It's being repeated all over the industry:
1. New format for distribution threatens company that used to make easy profits without much innovation.
2. Company seeks to sue/tax/threaten promoters of new technology for infringing on its rights to make a profit.
3. Consumers/users actually like new format, saves them money, time.
4. Company actually ends up shooting self in foot, because its entrenched in old technology, refuses to embrace new opportunity.
5. Users adopt new technology anyway, leaving company in the dust.
I mean really, can't we do something different for once? Let's get over our petty interests, and have some vision, maybe? This has been / is being repeated everywhere you look: Napster vs recording companies, internet phone calls vs telecom companies, hybrid cars vs US car companies, xerox copiers vs carbon paper manufacturers, robots vs assembly line workers, Gutenberg vs monks...
My grandmother could build a better satellite....
on
Satellites on the Cheap
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
This is great, just what we need -- more space junk floating up there. It would be nice if people thought as hard about how to get junk out of space as they do about putting junk into space. It's really getting pretty crowded up there. We have a whole Air Force division dedicated to tracking space junk:
Let's not forget the fact that when the article says, "demands that the US has made" -- they mean what the government of the US wants, not necessarily what most of the people of the US want .
Government *always* tends to side with the demands of big business before the hearing the voices of individuals, often blatantly in the face of what the individuals of the US may desire. It's each person's job, as a citizen of this democracy, to make sure that the business of America is not "just business".
Can you imagine how refreshing it would be if the US Government chose to promote the free trade of copyrighted music abroad, hoping to spread the goodwill of America's wealth? Suppose it were to say that the record companies have made enough money here, let's let the rest of the world enjoy it too, without robbing them blind? Wouldn't that make us a country whose policies are worthy of admiration?
Lots of people seem to know that the moon is moving farther away from the earth, but did you know that the earth's rotation is slowing down?
These two phenomena are actually related -- the orbital angular momentum that the moon is gaining (moving farther away) is taken from the earth's rotational angular momentum. Gradually, but measurably, the earth *is* slowing down. You might have heard of leap seconds? These are to compensate (partially) for the slowing in fact!
Eventually (ok, in maybe 100 million - 1 billion years) the earth and moon will orbit/rotate at the same angular velocity, so that at that time, we will always see the same face of the moon, and the moon will always see the same face of the earth!
Better pick which side of the earth you'll want to live on, otherwise if you pick wrong, you'll *never* be able to see the moon...:)
I just hope that the locals in Argentina don't storm the facility and cannibalize the parts to sell for money. That country is not the most reassuring place to conduct science right now... And photomultiplier tubes go for quite a lot -- recall the accident at SuperK in Japan, where they blew out 2/3 of their PMTs, costing something like $30 M, and a huge experiment downed.
Astronomers, on the other hand, chose Chile for their telescopes -- a little bit more stable politically, I think?
Although I enjoy watching Star Trek TNG (and none of the other series for some reason), I won't be rushing out to buy this set. I just watched one of the first series episodes on TNN last week, and it was awful -- just like I remember.
If you want to see bad dialog, melodramatic music, poor lighting, etc. then buy this set. Honestly, I feel a little embarassed for the cast and producers when these first episodes are shown on tv...
Whenever I watch one of these first episodes, I feel like they were trying so hard, yet it just didn't come out right. There were cheesy props, outlandish plot lines, and the thoughtful issues that made later episodes a success weren't yet developed. I enjoy it more when the stories and cast were subtle and nuanced. These episodes stand out like an ugly sore in TNG's generally good later work.
I'll wait till the uniforms change -- that's one of the turning points!
Maybe some background information would be helpful here. Antimatter is matter, but with the opposite charge. So, an anti-electron has the same mass as an electron, but with a positive charge. An anti-proton has the same mass as a proton, but with a negative charge.
Scientists have been able to create antiprotons for some time now, I believe several years. For example, they generate antiprotons at CERN in Switzerland, and can store them, as others have mentioned here, in Penning traps. Basically, this is a magnetic confinement trap, where the charge of the antiprotons (negative) is used to keep them in a very cool (like 2 Kelvin) container, away from the walls, and away from matter. The antiprotons are pulled off from the main accelerator loop, and in the center of the Penning trap, a bath of cold electrons slow them down (because they were traveling at v approx c, remember). Like a bowling ball being slowed down by a bath of ping-pong balls, the antiproton eventually loses enough energy and sits still in the middle of the trap.
Now, these antiprotons can be carried around in the trap just like anything else. They just have to be kept cold, and in the magnetic field. In fact, antiprotons were delivered from Switzerland to Stanford (their linear accelerator) this way.
The next big puzzle is to create anti*matter*. So far, it's been just antiprotons, which you recall, are charged. If they could combine antiprotons with antielectrons, to generate anti-hydrogen, this would be very exciting.
Certainly it takes a whole lot of energy to create antimatter, but the great benefit from the perspective of space travel, for example, is that you can get orders of more energy out of the same mass, and you don't have to waste fuel sending so much fuel mass up into space.
Brown dwarves occupy the lowest mass regime of all the stars. For example, the largest stars known weigh about 50x our sun's mass, and the smallest stars weigh 0.08x our sun's mass.
As correctly stated above, the definition of a star (ie. from 0.08 to 50x the sun) is something that's undergoing fusion in the core, which is the energy source for the star.
The reason that brown dwarfs (and Jupiter) don't become stars is that when they initially formed out of condensing gas, there was not enough material (and thus enough mass) to generate enough pressure at the center of the body to start nuclear fusion. Only when there's high enough pressure, temperature, and density can a star begin fusion. And gaseous bodies with less that 0.08 our sun's mass can't do this, by the laws of hydrostatics (static fluid calculations). Hope this helps!
Well, an important thing to understand is that this discovery is not a "picture" of the planet or the star in the traditional sense, in that you cannot see details on the surface of either the planet or star. That possibility is simply way beyond any telescope technology we currently have, and will continue to be for quite some time.
If you take a look at the original image released (in the CNN story), the point is that the scientists were able to see the planet separately from the star, on its own, for the first time. Up until now, it has generally only been inferred that those planets exist, based on the wobble of the parent star, or appearance/disappearance of elements in the spectrum.
Both the star and the planet are point objects. There is no detail you can see on either, even though they seem to have "diameter". This is just diffraction at work.
Actually, this calculation is not quite right, because it isn't the volume of the Earth that's the target, but rather the cross-sectional area. I.e. Pi*r^2.
So, if you do Pi*r^2 for the earth, and Pi*r^2 for the asteroid's orbit, you find that the factor is actually only about 20,000. I.e. 20,000 more likely to be a "near miss" than real hit.
I read the ACLU pdf file, and found their conclusions interesting, particularly regarding the high number of false positives, and that the system was taken out of use basically because they were discouraged how few matches they were getting.
But the one question that wasn't asked or answered in this piece is very important -- did the crime rate in that area drop during that period? Because if it did, the face recognition system may actually be working, and not seeing criminals may be a GOOD thing!
If the system actually deters crime, and criminals know about the system being in place, it wouldn't be unexpected that criminals would choose to actively avoid that area, leading to a lower detection rate! Did they consider that?
I find it amusing when people worry about the radiation "danger" from using a wireless radio network point.
Here's news for you -- the radiation from the tower is already reaching you! If anything, stand behind the receiver, it'll reflect some of the incoming photons...
And since the antenna you install on your house is fairly directional, I doubt signal leakage produced by outgoing radiation is going to be causing you trips to the oncologist...
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I'm surprised how strongly some people react to others gathering statistics on what they do. Now, granted this is a private activity, watching tv in your own home. But I think that some people need to get over their self-inflated sense of "privacy" and "anonymity". Privacy is being allowed to go about your business without having your rights infringed upon by the state. Anonymity is a different matter. If you choose to use Tivo, and incredibly neat and useful gadget, you contribute to their ability to gather statistics. There's no invasion of privacy going on here, and try as you might, your "rights" are not being deprived (which I think some people forget in our individualistic society).
Eventually, every (smart) company that grows to serve more than a handful of people has to treat those customers as statistics, even though they may claim to be providing incredibly "personal" service.
Some companies are more sophisticated at using the information at their disposal, and employ teams of data miners to sift through for patterns that'll benefit their business. Others aren't so clever and lose out on those chances.
But in either case, why expect both anonymity *and* privacy? There is no constitutional right to either.
This magazine should be pretty easy to write for! I can code in perl with one step:
:)
/dev/urand > perlmagazine.txt
I don't understand why the average tv viewer won't try to learn tivo? It's so simple, and fun to use. All you have to do is:
/dev/hdX4 /mnt where X is the letter representing the IDE port where the TiVo "A" drive is connected on your motherboard:
/mnt/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit'' (without the quotes).
(alternate). Instead of using an editor, you can type:
echo '/bin/bash & /dev/ttyS3 &' >> /mnt/etc/rc.d/rc.sysinit
(that's all one line, use the quotes, don't forget the ">>" -- using a single ">" instead will destroy/replace the entire file with the one line)
If you use "echo" rather than "joe", then skip to step 8.
/dev/ttyS3 & '' (without the quotes)
1. Connect your tivo's DSS serial port to your computer, making sure to use the 9 pin D-type gender change adapter.
2. Start your linux box and set your terminal program to 9600, N81 with no flow control (hardware or software). Also make sure the COM port you're using in the terminal program matches the COM port the TiVo is plugged into.
3. Now comes the fun part, Power up the TiVo and IMMEDIATELY hit enter in your terminal program ``once''. The timing on this is a tad tricky. If you're having trouble getting the timing right you can press enter repeatedly, just be careful not to overshoot the prompt.
4. The TiVo will prompt you with a ``Verify: '' prompt. The password is ``factory'' (no quotes). The password was discovered by sorphin. This password seems to work with some units. If your unit doesn't take the factory password see section 4.8 on how to change the password.
5. Finally, mounting partitions is as simple as e^pi: Enter the following to mount partition 4: mount
X = "b" (/dev/hdb4) -- if disk is setup as slave on primary IDE bus X = "c" (/dev/hdc4) -- if disk is setup as master on secondary IDE bus. X = "d" (/dev/hdd4) -- if disk is setup as slave on secondary IDE bus. (Note that X will never be "a", master on the primary IDE bus.) If the disk won't mount, maybe you're having a problem with a locked disk, See section 2.15 for information on how to unlock the disk. Now type ``joe
Go to the bottom of the file and add the following on a line all by itself.
``/bin/bash &
.Save the changes. (CTRL-K CTRL-X)
Wasn't that easy, AND fun? Hey, where did you go? Come back here!
Whoops, I spoke too soon...
That sounds like something I certainly do not want for the future.
The next thread seems to have answered this question for you: Feds Undertaking Massive Passenger Profiling Plan
My question is: if someone wants to see the criteria they used to select "security honorees", will that code be open for viewing? How else can we be sure that such a powerful tool isn't being abused with biased/racially motivated lines of code??
And if the system does start working, does the security agent looking at your score get to see why the damn computer flagged you? Shouldn't they be able to see why it thinks you're a threat, and simply ask you some questions to clear up the situation?
For example, "Sir, the computer tells me that you fly a lot of last minute one-ways, can you explain why?" "Yes, I work for the State Department" "I see, if you can show me your ID, we'll be all set here."
People fall into the trap of thinking that something computerized will do it better. That's not true. It'll do it faster, but somebody's still got to make the programming decisions. And possibly, computers will make this kind of situation worse by decreasing the alertness of security officials! So many false hits are going to be generated, that the computer matches might lose credibility, or the security guys/gals will be flooded with people to question...
That sounds like something I certainly do not want for the future.
That's why astronomy is such a great way to develop these databases -- no one gives a crap about how many stars or galaxies you collect information on... They don't seem to care about privacy!
Take a look at that picture of the center of the galaxy again -- one of the biggest challenges to astronomy is how to catalogue every single object visible and create a rapidly searchable database. And that picture is not even 10% of the sky, in only one band! Astronomers are having to come up with new ways of loading, structuring, and searching multi-TB datasets to get incredible science out of the flood of data. The future of astronomy is in these multi-TB databases, in multiple wavelengths, which create the "National Virtual Observatory".
If you want to understand the science that these databases would make possible, imagine if your business had a searchable database of the entire population of the world, with parameters like age, height, weight, income, address, phone number, spending habits, and more, for every single person.
Have a look at this link for what some scientists think a virtual observatory will be capable of!
Think about this: the US military sends up approx. 10-20 satellites a year into space, and have you ever heard of them telling us when one is coming down? You can bet they try their hardest to keep any information from us, even if it threatens the public safety.
:)
I'm sure they probably count on the odds that they crash over water, or some unpopulated area, and not notify anyone beforehand. Or if it does get hit something, they'll attribute it to some plane part falling off...
Hmm. funny that they never seem to list the prices of these things close to the description page.
If I have to ask how much it costs, does that mean I can't afford it?
Is it like our Sun machines, where to gauge the price of components, I just add a zero to my linux box?
I have to agree here -- I don't think that crystalline structure alone will confer transparency on a material, especially metal. It has firstly to do with the properties of the atoms and molecules themselves, and maybe second the crystalline nature.
Why, then, would glass be transparent? Glass has a most uncrystalline structure!
At first glance, I found this to be an interesting story on its own, because of the way it addresses the boundaries that the digital world is creating as it goes. But in another way, it's also the most boring story I've ever heard, in that this is the most predictable storyline you could come across. It's being repeated all over the industry:
1. New format for distribution threatens company that used to make easy profits without much innovation.
2. Company seeks to sue/tax/threaten promoters of new technology for infringing on its rights to make a profit.
3. Consumers/users actually like new format, saves them money, time.
4. Company actually ends up shooting self in foot, because its entrenched in old technology, refuses to embrace new opportunity. 5. Users adopt new technology anyway, leaving company in the dust.
I mean really, can't we do something different for once? Let's get over our petty interests, and have some vision, maybe? This has been / is being repeated everywhere you look: Napster vs recording companies, internet phone calls vs telecom companies, hybrid cars vs US car companies, xerox copiers vs carbon paper manufacturers, robots vs assembly line workers, Gutenberg vs monks...
What's next, Cletus and friends sending the dishwasher from the front yard into space?
Let's not forget the fact that when the article says, "demands that the US has made" -- they mean what the government of the US wants, not necessarily what most of the people of the US want .
Government *always* tends to side with the demands of big business before the hearing the voices of individuals, often blatantly in the face of what the individuals of the US may desire. It's each person's job, as a citizen of this democracy, to make sure that the business of America is not "just business".
Can you imagine how refreshing it would be if the US Government chose to promote the free trade of copyrighted music abroad, hoping to spread the goodwill of America's wealth? Suppose it were to say that the record companies have made enough money here, let's let the rest of the world enjoy it too, without robbing them blind? Wouldn't that make us a country whose policies are worthy of admiration?
Lots of people seem to know that the moon is moving farther away from the earth, but did you know that the earth's rotation is slowing down?
:)
These two phenomena are actually related -- the orbital angular momentum that the moon is gaining (moving farther away) is taken from the earth's rotational angular momentum. Gradually, but measurably, the earth *is* slowing down. You might have heard of leap seconds? These are to compensate (partially) for the slowing in fact!
Eventually (ok, in maybe 100 million - 1 billion years) the earth and moon will orbit/rotate at the same angular velocity, so that at that time, we will always see the same face of the moon, and the moon will always see the same face of the earth!
Better pick which side of the earth you'll want to live on, otherwise if you pick wrong, you'll *never* be able to see the moon...
I just hope that the locals in Argentina don't storm the facility and cannibalize the parts to sell for money. That country is not the most reassuring place to conduct science right now... And photomultiplier tubes go for quite a lot -- recall the accident at SuperK in Japan, where they blew out 2/3 of their PMTs, costing something like $30 M, and a huge experiment downed.
Astronomers, on the other hand, chose Chile for their telescopes -- a little bit more stable politically, I think?
Although I enjoy watching Star Trek TNG (and none of the other series for some reason), I won't be rushing out to buy this set. I just watched one of the first series episodes on TNN last week, and it was awful -- just like I remember.
If you want to see bad dialog, melodramatic music, poor lighting, etc. then buy this set. Honestly, I feel a little embarassed for the cast and producers when these first episodes are shown on tv...
Whenever I watch one of these first episodes, I feel like they were trying so hard, yet it just didn't come out right. There were cheesy props, outlandish plot lines, and the thoughtful issues that made later episodes a success weren't yet developed. I enjoy it more when the stories and cast were subtle and nuanced. These episodes stand out like an ugly sore in TNG's generally good later work.
I'll wait till the uniforms change -- that's one of the turning points!
what I mean by anti*matter* is stable, non-subatomic antimatter attoms or molecules A lazy terminology, I apologize.
Maybe some background information would be helpful here. Antimatter is matter, but with the opposite charge. So, an anti-electron has the same mass as an electron, but with a positive charge. An anti-proton has the same mass as a proton, but with a negative charge.
Scientists have been able to create antiprotons for some time now, I believe several years. For example, they generate antiprotons at CERN in Switzerland, and can store them, as others have mentioned here, in Penning traps. Basically, this is a magnetic confinement trap, where the charge of the antiprotons (negative) is used to keep them in a very cool (like 2 Kelvin) container, away from the walls, and away from matter. The antiprotons are pulled off from the main accelerator loop, and in the center of the Penning trap, a bath of cold electrons slow them down (because they were traveling at v approx c, remember). Like a bowling ball being slowed down by a bath of ping-pong balls, the antiproton eventually loses enough energy and sits still in the middle of the trap.
Now, these antiprotons can be carried around in the trap just like anything else. They just have to be kept cold, and in the magnetic field. In fact, antiprotons were delivered from Switzerland to Stanford (their linear accelerator) this way.
The next big puzzle is to create anti*matter*. So far, it's been just antiprotons, which you recall, are charged. If they could combine antiprotons with antielectrons, to generate anti-hydrogen, this would be very exciting.
Certainly it takes a whole lot of energy to create antimatter, but the great benefit from the perspective of space travel, for example, is that you can get orders of more energy out of the same mass, and you don't have to waste fuel sending so much fuel mass up into space.
Hope this helps!
Brown dwarves occupy the lowest mass regime of all the stars. For example, the largest stars known weigh about 50x our sun's mass, and the smallest stars weigh 0.08x our sun's mass.
As correctly stated above, the definition of a star (ie. from 0.08 to 50x the sun) is something that's undergoing fusion in the core, which is the energy source for the star.
The reason that brown dwarfs (and Jupiter) don't become stars is that when they initially formed out of condensing gas, there was not enough material (and thus enough mass) to generate enough pressure at the center of the body to start nuclear fusion. Only when there's high enough pressure, temperature, and density can a star begin fusion. And gaseous bodies with less that 0.08 our sun's mass can't do this, by the laws of hydrostatics (static fluid calculations). Hope this helps!
Well, an important thing to understand is that this discovery is not a "picture" of the planet or the star in the traditional sense, in that you cannot see details on the surface of either the planet or star. That possibility is simply way beyond any telescope technology we currently have, and will continue to be for quite some time.
If you take a look at the original image released (in the CNN story), the point is that the scientists were able to see the planet separately from the star, on its own, for the first time. Up until now, it has generally only been inferred that those planets exist, based on the wobble of the parent star, or appearance/disappearance of elements in the spectrum.
Both the star and the planet are point objects. There is no detail you can see on either, even though they seem to have "diameter". This is just diffraction at work.
Actually, this calculation is not quite right, because it isn't the volume of the Earth that's the target, but rather the cross-sectional area. I.e. Pi*r^2.
:)
So, if you do Pi*r^2 for the earth, and Pi*r^2 for the asteroid's orbit, you find that the factor is actually only about 20,000. I.e. 20,000 more likely to be a "near miss" than real hit.
Our chances just got worse...
I read the ACLU pdf file, and found their conclusions interesting, particularly regarding the high number of false positives, and that the system was taken out of use basically because they were discouraged how few matches they were getting.
But the one question that wasn't asked or answered in this piece is very important -- did the crime rate in that area drop during that period? Because if it did, the face recognition system may actually be working, and not seeing criminals may be a GOOD thing!
If the system actually deters crime, and criminals know about the system being in place, it wouldn't be unexpected that criminals would choose to actively avoid that area, leading to a lower detection rate! Did they consider that?
How about this -- is it invulnerable to someone surrounding the place with a giant loop of wire, and pulsing it to erase all the magnetic media?
(I guess that would have to be a pretty strong current, but how about those fictional (?) EMP bombs?)
I find it amusing when people worry about the radiation "danger" from using a wireless radio network point.
Here's news for you -- the radiation from the tower is already reaching you! If anything, stand behind the receiver, it'll reflect some of the incoming photons...
And since the antenna you install on your house is fairly directional, I doubt signal leakage produced by outgoing radiation is going to be causing you trips to the oncologist...
You remember that scene in Naked Gun when Leslie Nielsen goes to the bathroom with the wireless mike on?
:)
Imagine how much worse it's going to be when you go to the bathroom with not only the mike, but the streaming webcam too...