The key fobs work by producing a new code each time you press it, and the car remembers which ones it's heard, preventing you from recording someone getting into the car and playing it back later.
So I guess the magic is that with an hour's worth of data, you can now figure out the sequence. But why bother? If you somehow can record 3600 fob activations in an hour away from the car, you can with no special knowledge make a key that will work 3600 times. More than long enough to fence the car, or steal the laptop inside.
OK, first I have to get past the oxymoronic idea of multiple universes.
But let's say this is right and universes form from the shards of a previously exploded universe. Over time universes which did this well would be selected for. Maybe universes capable of evolving life both intelligent and crazy enough to go hacking around at the subatomic level reproduce better because they get blowed up real good:-).
I assume Apple worked with Google in order to integrate Google Maps with the phone more tightly than would be possible with a generic web application. If you watch Steve's demo, you'll see him do a Maps search for Starbucks and then click (actually I guess touch) the result to make a (prank) call to one nearby. Very cool!
You can extend your wife's health insurance under a federal law called COBRA. Federal law requires most companies to provide employees losing paid coverage the ability to continue health insurace for up to 18 months (longer in some circumstances) by letting the employee pay the same group rate that the company pays. Who knows -- in 18 months your wife might be working again or you might start working for a company that has insurance.
I don't believe it matters why you lose coverage -- I know it works equally well if you are laid off or quit, or go part-time and lose full-time benefits.
Usually this COBRA isn't a bad deal because companies are able to shop around, but you still might do better with other options. The main trick is to become part of a group. Some places there are local software developers associations, and membership in these could qualify you for the group rate (I think this was true back when I looked into it in WA state in the late 90's). If you're not part of a group the cost is usually higher or the benefits less. I think this is because a larger fraction of individuals sign up for insurance when they know they're going to need it to pay for something in the near future.
The other important thing is don't let your insurance lapse. It might seem like not a big deal to quit your old insurance and risk a few months before you get something new, but in many cases when you start up insurance after a period of not being insured, the insurance will refuse to cover pre-existing conditions for a long period of time. (Meaning it might not help much to wait to get insurance until after you've been diagnosed with cancer.)
Caveat: I'm not a health care or insurance professional; this is all from my personal experience so if somethng I've written prompts you to make a decision, please double-check with another source. Also I think laws related to this are different from state to state, so there's a big possibility that things will be different where you live from where I live.
Actually I'm pretty sure he stepped down to run his charitable foundation. I had the pleasure of watching Bill Gates receive the James C. Morgan Global Humanitarian Award at the Tech Museum Awards in San Jose this past month. He gave what I consider to be a really great speech.
He spoke about how the amount of money spent research diseases that are killing most of the people around the developing world (say, malaria, which kills thousands of children each day) lags way behind money spend on the challenging health problems of the developed world (say, baldness, which prevents thousands of guys from getting laid each day). He spoke with passion and without reading a teleprompter.
Now I use Linux and home and work and am one of the crowd that tends to be prejudiced against Microsoft because they're so big and wield what I consider to be an unhealthy amount of influence. But I want to take issue with those who think Microsoft or Bill Gates are motivated by evil intentions. There's no big difference between the way Microsoft tries to increase sales and the methods used by other companies. The problem is that Microsoft has been so successful that free market competition isn't working well.
The big thing that Microsoft has been called on the carpet for is giving discounts to computer manufacturers that bundle Windows with every computer. This is absolutely a normal strategy -- you get software bundled on computers all the time where the software manufacturer gives a discount because the manufacturer sticks it on every computer. It's not evil, just good business.
The problem is that once you become too big, what used to be good business practices can now become unhealthy. The problem is you don't just wake up one day and think "Wow, we're so successful, let's stop try so hard to sell our products and give the other guys a chance." And that's why we have anti-trust laws which kick in and let the government, on behalf of the rest of us, in effect say to companies like Microsoft that they're too successful and need to back off from some of their business strategies.
There are really two ways to run afould of anti-trust laws. One is to be so successful that you have a monopoly or close to it, and your business practices need to be restricted. The other is that you secretly call up your competitors and fix prices with them, like the airlines did in the 1980's for example. I think the second is a bit on the evil side, but it's not what Microsoft has been accused of.
So to summarize, I think Bill Gates is smart and well-intentioned. It's OK and healthy to dislike Microsoft because it wields too much influence, but that doesn't mean that the people who have been leading Microsoft have been doing so with evil intentions.
The Gigapan device, being developed by CMU and NASA, is a low-cost way to generate 1-40 gigapixel panoramas using off-the-shelf digital cameras. Soon it will be available to the general public. See some panoramas taken with the device or find out more about the commercial version. (Disclaimer: I'm part of the Global Connection project, which is developing the device)
While the slashdot report says that the USGS didn't detect the test, actually the USGS site does show a magnitude 4.2 "quake" in North Korea at 01:35:27 UTC. The BBC reports the test as happening at essentially the same time (01:36 UTC).
Radio kits just aren't as compelling as they were 30 years ago when I was that age. Today I think robotic kits are particularly compelling, and some even provide a jumping-off point for learning to program.
On a related note, I was also bitten by the LEGO bug as a youngster, and probably spent an order of magnitude more time building with LEGO than I spent building electronics kits. Something to consider...
Slashdot Mirror
The key fobs work by producing a new code each time you press it, and the car remembers which ones it's heard, preventing you from recording someone getting into the car and playing it back later.
So I guess the magic is that with an hour's worth of data, you can now figure out the sequence. But why bother? If you somehow can record 3600 fob activations in an hour away from the car, you can with no special knowledge make a key that will work 3600 times. More than long enough to fence the car, or steal the laptop inside.
OK, first I have to get past the oxymoronic idea of multiple universes.
:-).
But let's say this is right and universes form from the shards of a previously exploded universe. Over time universes which did this well would be selected for. Maybe universes capable of evolving life both intelligent and crazy enough to go hacking around at the subatomic level reproduce better because they get blowed up real good
I assume Apple worked with Google in order to integrate Google Maps with the phone more tightly than would be possible with a generic web application. If you watch Steve's demo, you'll see him do a Maps search for Starbucks and then click (actually I guess touch) the result to make a (prank) call to one nearby. Very cool!
I don't believe it matters why you lose coverage -- I know it works equally well if you are laid off or quit, or go part-time and lose full-time benefits.
Usually this COBRA isn't a bad deal because companies are able to shop around, but you still might do better with other options. The main trick is to become part of a group. Some places there are local software developers associations, and membership in these could qualify you for the group rate (I think this was true back when I looked into it in WA state in the late 90's). If you're not part of a group the cost is usually higher or the benefits less. I think this is because a larger fraction of individuals sign up for insurance when they know they're going to need it to pay for something in the near future.
The other important thing is don't let your insurance lapse. It might seem like not a big deal to quit your old insurance and risk a few months before you get something new, but in many cases when you start up insurance after a period of not being insured, the insurance will refuse to cover pre-existing conditions for a long period of time. (Meaning it might not help much to wait to get insurance until after you've been diagnosed with cancer.)
Caveat: I'm not a health care or insurance professional; this is all from my personal experience so if somethng I've written prompts you to make a decision, please double-check with another source. Also I think laws related to this are different from state to state, so there's a big possibility that things will be different where you live from where I live.
I looked online and couldn't find a video, but here's a transcript.
He spoke about how the amount of money spent research diseases that are killing most of the people around the developing world (say, malaria, which kills thousands of children each day) lags way behind money spend on the challenging health problems of the developed world (say, baldness, which prevents thousands of guys from getting laid each day). He spoke with passion and without reading a teleprompter.
Now I use Linux and home and work and am one of the crowd that tends to be prejudiced against Microsoft because they're so big and wield what I consider to be an unhealthy amount of influence. But I want to take issue with those who think Microsoft or Bill Gates are motivated by evil intentions. There's no big difference between the way Microsoft tries to increase sales and the methods used by other companies. The problem is that Microsoft has been so successful that free market competition isn't working well.
The big thing that Microsoft has been called on the carpet for is giving discounts to computer manufacturers that bundle Windows with every computer. This is absolutely a normal strategy -- you get software bundled on computers all the time where the software manufacturer gives a discount because the manufacturer sticks it on every computer. It's not evil, just good business.
The problem is that once you become too big, what used to be good business practices can now become unhealthy. The problem is you don't just wake up one day and think "Wow, we're so successful, let's stop try so hard to sell our products and give the other guys a chance." And that's why we have anti-trust laws which kick in and let the government, on behalf of the rest of us, in effect say to companies like Microsoft that they're too successful and need to back off from some of their business strategies.
There are really two ways to run afould of anti-trust laws. One is to be so successful that you have a monopoly or close to it, and your business practices need to be restricted. The other is that you secretly call up your competitors and fix prices with them, like the airlines did in the 1980's for example. I think the second is a bit on the evil side, but it's not what Microsoft has been accused of.
So to summarize, I think Bill Gates is smart and well-intentioned. It's OK and healthy to dislike Microsoft because it wields too much influence, but that doesn't mean that the people who have been leading Microsoft have been doing so with evil intentions.
The Gigapan device, being developed by CMU and NASA, is a low-cost way to generate 1-40 gigapixel panoramas using off-the-shelf digital cameras. Soon it will be available to the general public. See some panoramas taken with the device or find out more about the commercial version. (Disclaimer: I'm part of the Global Connection project, which is developing the device)
While the slashdot report says that the USGS didn't detect the test, actually the USGS site does show a magnitude 4.2 "quake" in North Korea at 01:35:27 UTC. The BBC reports the test as happening at essentially the same time (01:36 UTC).
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USGS site: http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/M
BBC news report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6032525.s
Radio kits just aren't as compelling as they were 30 years ago when I was that age. Today I think robotic kits are particularly compelling, and some even provide a jumping-off point for learning to program.
On a related note, I was also bitten by the LEGO bug as a youngster, and probably spent an order of magnitude more time building with LEGO than I spent building electronics kits. Something to consider...