But, I'm also a Red Crosser, and don't want GI Joes and Janes to have a maximally frackked experience.
A little bit of humanity protects dogfaces from PTSD. It sucketh massively to grow another crop of PTSD'd zombie combat vets like so many of buds who went to 'Nam and left their souls there. I want to protect them, for if they don't turn into stone-faced killers, and stay human, they'll kill less innocent Iraqis, and come home saner.
Let's leave alone the stuff that's above their pay grade, and instead of being fruitlessly political, go ponder how to assure this doesn't happen again, eh?
As they left their joint office, Strong, always penny conscious, was careful to switch off the light. Harriman had seen him do so a thousand times; this time he commented. "George, how about a light switch that turns off automatically when you leave a room?"
"Hmm--but suppose someone were left in the room?"
"Well. . . hitch it to stay on only when someone was in the room--key the switch to the human body's heat radiation, maybe."
"Too expensive and too complicated."
"Needn't be. I'll turn the idea over to Ferguson to fiddle with. It should be no larger than the present light switch and cheap enough so that the power saved in a year will pay for it."
"How would it work?" asked Strong.
"How should I know? I'm no engineer; that's for Ferguson and the other educated laddies."
Strong objected, "It's no good commercially. Switching off a light when you leave a room is a matter of temperament. I've got it; you haven't. If a man hasn't got it, you can't interest him in such a switch."
"You can if power continues to be rationed. There is a power shortage now; and there will be a bigger one."
"Just temporary. This meeting will straighten it out."
"George, there is nothing in this world so permanent as a temporary emergency. The switch will sell."
Yep. Both my wife and I prefer a separate Palm (Tx and T5, respectively) and phone. By comparison, my Treo 650 (ATTWS) should have had Duncan stamped on it, for it went up and down like a yo-yo.
My Nokia 9300, by comparison, is very stable. And, yes, I do use some of the functionality of the 9300, and its Opera browser's great, but its address book and calendar are nowhere near what the Palm offers.
My Treo 650 should have been labeled Duncan... for it went up and down like a Yo-Yo.
Ever since I got my Nokia 9300 Communicator, I have been scratching my head, asking Why, Why, Why is the Treo such a disaster, until I finally gave up and just use the 9300 exclusively. It's a kick-as phone, the best radio in a digital cellphone I've ever had. Its feature set is rich, and when accompanied by A KEYBOARD HUMANS CAN ACTUALLY USE (unlike the Treo... and I loved my Tungsten W, which should give me some cred in PalmWorld, as should my having written the Wireless FAQ for PalmOS, waybackwhen), please take me at my word when I say you should try it.
The 9300 is sold Stateside by Cingular's business division and by Amazon. But, it is soooo worthy. Having a dual-core processor with the phone side running Symbian Series 40 results is very, very good reliability, whereas I've had Treos crash so hard it required a complete hard reset to get it back... which means it's wiped clean until I can get back to my PC to resync.
Good news
Build: 4.5
Sound: 5
Radio: 5
Software bundle: IMAP/POP3/Blackberry mail, Opera's browser, Word/Excel/PowerPoint editing/viewing, excellent backlog of third-party apps including Acrobat viewer, gMail client, MP3/OGG player, et al.
I do miss the Treo 650's backlit keys (but, compare Treo's 1800 mah cell to the 970mah of the Nokia BP-6M battery. Backlighting buttons burns batteries, I s'pose). So, swing the lid in from the normal tilt, to around 75 degrees & the screen shines on the keys.
I have run entire disaster operations just from the 9300... texting to field operators, generating reports in Excel and Word to e-mail to the Powers-That-Be, including photos from a digital camera, entered by swapping in the MMC card from the camera.
I never fail to generate serious envy when someone sees it for the first time. It Is Slick, and Just Works.
"One Neck To Choke." Hilarious. Ever thing about improv instead of IT?
I was at Ground Zero for a Call Manager install which my boss thought was going to be a "One Neck To Choke" job, Instead, Cisco passed the buck to a VAR, the VAR sales rep specs hardware AND software never tested for what's in the RFP, and it became a millstone around MY neck because El Jefe chose me to admin it.
Spec clearly called for the switch to route video traffic to and from our Polycom Viewstation MP boxen into the ISDN PRIs, which never, never worked, despite Cisco's 'engineers' having us stand on our heads and play with the gear; just one example of Cisco's trail of tears on this project.
Multiple times, I documented how the Mechanic's Shrug was no excuse for meeting the terms of the contract, but welcome to Uncle Sam; the Cisco VAR threatened to walk away, and since having that happen would be a Career Limiting Move for my boss, that never happened. Instead, a scapegoat was found. Guess who? The guy in the barrel holding the lantern, looking for one honest VAR.
Oregon's a "Shall Issue" state, as is Washington; in fact, getting a Washington toter's card for Oregonians is as simple as saying, "I travel in Washington on business". Now, if we could just get reciprocity with Florida.... as only 12 states honor Oregon's toter's card, and the Sunshine State ain't one of 'em.
-- The TSA is a test. It is only a test...... "Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857.
has rechargables, Ni-MH "D" cells rated at 12 amp-hours; yes, 12,000 milliamp-hours each, if you hafta be Green. However, the Real Deal, eTanium(TM) is rated at 21.5 AH each:
a little soldering, the right length of cord & the right-sized connector tip http://tinyurl.com/5x4om
an Bob's Yer Uncle.
Don't add more than you need, and jump across the contacts if you only need seven cells to make the optimal voltage, instead of going over your laptop's rated voltage by more than a volt. The voltage regulator would just have to step down the power, which makes extra heat in your laptop, which slows down your processor, and accelerates battery drain.
Seven of the el cheapo "D" cells plus a jumper wire give me 20.5 AH for $10, plus $2 in parts and the connector I scrounged off a blown power supply. That's 10.7 times the capacity of the standard battery (2 hour run time) on my Fujitsu Lifebook. Geez, fly to Oz on those suckers. Then, I can go to a 7-11 there, buy another set of "D" cells, and have juice for the flight home.
If you're neither handy nor handsome, Mouser http://tinyurl.com/6wq7g has every power connector in the Twelve Colonies, http://scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast everything the Lords of Kobol ever designed. Or, pay $10 to The Shack for the aforementioned iGo tip, cuz, well, iGo tips are right there in the store, where the rest of your parts are.
Too bulky? You can downsize it to "C" cells, or even "AA" cells, as seven "AA" batteries exceed the capacity of my spendy, storebought factory battery pack by 50%.
But, then, I'm a ham, one of the crash test dummies of the electronics world, and we do these things so you don't have to.
1. I'm K7AAY, BTW, and spend at least six hours a month, often more, on training, rehearsals and drills, like every other ham in ARES and sister organizations outside of the US.
2. I got my license because of a bulletin from SANS in August, 2001 (note date) that warned disasters would likely down both landline and cellular lines and long distance trunks. Tne, 9/11 validated that; disaster workers had lousy comm in Manhattan, except for the pager nets and two-way radio.
3.
...because to do that, both they and the operators on the other side would have to be tied in to whatever government or agency is reaching out to help. And to have that be the case, there would have to be serious pre-disaster networks and agreements set up.
Memorandums of Understanding are the agreements governments use to prearrange working arrangements with ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) units and other VOADs (Volunteer Orgainizations Active in Disaster). Here's the MOU between FEMA and the ARRL/ARES.
4.
A single ham radio operator on his/her own is not going to be that useful.
As Sherman T. Potter said, Mulefeathers! Here's just one shining example which disproves your arguement.
when it comes to email, the web, phoning, and otherwise connecting those communicating tasks the Blackberry doesn't present many "dead-ends" for information. My palm m125 on the other hand is nothing but a dead end for information.
Well, the Blackberry's got a radio in it; the m125 doesn't. Add the radio (GSM sled, connection to cellphone) and T-Mobile service and you'd have everything the Blackberry can do, and more.
I say T-mobile, for they will SMS you to tell you you have mail; other carriers (SPCS) cripped SMS and don't offer e-mail filtering (do I need spam on my PDA? NOT.)
I really don't think it's realistic to expect a no-radio device to compete with one which does. How could anyone expect otherwise?
The Eudora freeware text-only browser is reasonably fast. When combined with lean sites, it does a decent job.
Yes, I miss PQAs, but to keep on the good dside of the carriers, I figure P1 (palmone.com) had to ditch the use of the two-way paging service, because it was just too efficient when compared to data transport over cellular service.
These days, the major customer is the guy who sells your gizmo, and increasingly, that's the cellular provider, who lives and dies by houw much airtime you buy.
Been doing this for four years with WeSync freeware. Handles up to 14 different calendars, multiple views. Accepts standard DateBook data from each user.
Contact WeSync.com and ask to beta-test their new stuff. You'll be glad you did.
1) It's bloody cold on the ISS. Extra calories keep them warm.
2) They also have to exercise like demons to minimize the loss of bone and muscle mass. Exercise burns calories.
3) Food is comfort. When you are stuck in a smelly cold can with someone from another culture, wearing the same clothes for a month, sponge bathing only weekly, and on a work schedule which would boggle 99% of us here, damn right they deserve something enjoyable.
Google's own Gmail Notifier does not work with Win98.. and that's what I have to run at home because of legacy apps. The FireFox notifier worked fine, until Google broke it. Beta or not, this ain't the way to win friends and influence people.
My home alarm works just fine... since it was rewired properly to connect upstream of all other phones in the house. *Any* phone tech can figure this out, and most alarm techs; just not reporters.
I also took the time to make sure the VOIP box was on the office BBS, just like the PCs, router and cable modem. D'oh.
need to dial 911,
My Vonage account included 911 connectivity, and Vonage is not the only VOIP provider which does. Don't buy VOIP service without it.
use TiVo Oh, yeah, I want a DVR that thinks I'm gay, or which phones home to tattle on what I watch. Right. DISH Network does not care and does not need to phone home.
or simply want your phone number included in the phone book,
Vonage preserved my listing when I moved my phone number. Even if they did not, your'e saving enough to pay for a listing.
you're likely to be out of luck.
You're likely to be out of luck if you trust reporters.
Because of VoIP's mobility-- subscribers can use any broadband connection anywhere-- emergency operators won't automatically know where the person's calling from. If I'm away from home, I won't be dragging the VOIP box with me, as it's serving the home alarm system. Remember the newsie just made a big flaming deal about the alarm system? Even if I took it with me, or used a softphone on my laptop, I certainly would not be so witless as to not report my location when making a 911 call. Geez.
And, as far as high speed pizza delivery, well the Deliverator knows where I am. Changing from Qworst to Vonage did not affect my ability to order in the slightest.
You know, I think this reporter got a press release from a telco filled with FUD and wrote the article based on that. Would anyone here be surprised, were that the case?
> Did you ever notice that fighters are painted with camoflage paint.
Whuich planes? Camo is definately *not* USAF standard because it makes the aircraft *more* visible.
Please, give us a break.
{snip}
> of course all broadcasters already keep recordings of all their output
{snip}
Wrong, wrong, wrong
There are hundreds of small, community-focused radio stations in this nation to which this would be an unreasonable burden. Non-profit radio, community radio, tribal radio, most of whom are on the edge already.
Sure, it's of no consequence to the Robots of ClearChannel, who wish to execute any announcer or operator who deviates nore than 16ms from the scheduled routine. But, for human-operated radio, having to run tape or files 24x7x366 is not cheap, and neither will archiving it in presentable form.
Not every station is automated, and some which ain't make some damned fine radio. But, the FCC once more erects another burden on small stations which the big chains can just blithely march right over.
I have two blogs on Blogger and have yet to receive an invite. Of course, maybe it's because I'm a Registered Repbulican (but only so's ah kin votes agin David Duke twicet, ya see....)
Slashdot Mirror
Like First Blogger Dr. Jerry Pournellem l
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/currentview.ht
I was opposed to Shrub's Folly.
But, I'm also a Red Crosser, and don't want GI Joes and Janes to have a maximally frackked experience.
A little bit of humanity protects dogfaces from PTSD. It sucketh massively to grow another crop of PTSD'd zombie combat vets like so many of buds who went to 'Nam and left their souls there. I want to protect them, for if they don't turn into stone-faced killers, and stay human, they'll kill less innocent Iraqis, and come home saner.
Let's leave alone the stuff that's above their pay grade, and instead of being fruitlessly political, go ponder how to assure this doesn't happen again, eh?
a) Tallil is a BIG place.r aq&layer=&sll=45.412759,-122.615635&sspn=0.214018, 0.431213&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=30.951859,46.13959&spn=0. 004085,0.006738&t=k&om=1&iwloc=addr
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=tALLIL,+I
b) Maskirova will undoubtedly be used; how do they know WHICH tent the gamers are in?
c) Besides, the gun bunnies will be playing the "Counter Battery Fire" game, for double XP.
Why not use VNC?
1. Convenience. Mash a button, and you've switched.
2. Having the full screen to use, 100% of the time.
3. Slowness
4. Irregular refreshing
That's over a crossover cable to the other machine, BTW, no other traffic over the wire, so don't blame the LAN.
I really liked the concept, tried a copple of VNC variants, but went back to a KVM .
Yep. Both my wife and I prefer a separate Palm (Tx and T5, respectively) and phone. By comparison, my Treo 650 (ATTWS) should have had Duncan stamped on it, for it went up and down like a yo-yo.
My Nokia 9300, by comparison, is very stable. And, yes, I do use some of the functionality of the 9300, and its Opera browser's great, but its address book and calendar are nowhere near what the Palm offers.
My Treo 650 should have been labeled Duncan... for it went up and down like a Yo-Yo.
Ever since I got my Nokia 9300 Communicator, I have been scratching my head, asking Why, Why, Why is the Treo such a disaster, until I finally gave up and just use the 9300 exclusively. It's a kick-as phone, the best radio in a digital cellphone I've ever had. Its feature set is rich, and when accompanied by A KEYBOARD HUMANS CAN ACTUALLY USE (unlike the Treo... and I loved my Tungsten W, which should give me some cred in PalmWorld, as should my having written the Wireless FAQ for PalmOS, waybackwhen), please take me at my word when I say you should try it.
The 9300 is sold Stateside by Cingular's business division and by Amazon. But, it is soooo worthy. Having a dual-core processor with the phone side running Symbian Series 40 results is very, very good reliability, whereas I've had Treos crash so hard it required a complete hard reset to get it back... which means it's wiped clean until I can get back to my PC to resync.
Good news
Build: 4.5
Sound: 5
Radio: 5
Software bundle: IMAP/POP3/Blackberry mail, Opera's browser, Word/Excel/PowerPoint editing/viewing, excellent backlog of third-party apps including Acrobat viewer, gMail client, MP3/OGG player, et al.
I do miss the Treo 650's backlit keys (but, compare Treo's 1800 mah cell to the 970mah of the Nokia BP-6M battery. Backlighting buttons burns batteries, I s'pose). So, swing the lid in from the normal tilt, to around 75 degrees & the screen shines on the keys.
I have run entire disaster operations just from the 9300... texting to field operators, generating reports in Excel and Word to e-mail to the Powers-That-Be, including photos from a digital camera, entered by swapping in the MMC card from the camera.
I never fail to generate serious envy when someone sees it for the first time. It Is Slick, and Just Works.
"One Neck To Choke." Hilarious. Ever thing about improv instead of IT?
I was at Ground Zero for a Call Manager install which my boss thought was going to be a "One Neck To Choke" job, Instead, Cisco passed the buck to a VAR, the VAR sales rep specs hardware AND software never tested for what's in the RFP, and it became a millstone around MY neck because El Jefe chose me to admin it.
Spec clearly called for the switch to route video traffic to and from our Polycom Viewstation MP boxen into the ISDN PRIs, which never, never worked, despite Cisco's 'engineers' having us stand on our heads and play with the gear; just one example of Cisco's trail of tears on this project.
Multiple times, I documented how the Mechanic's Shrug was no excuse for meeting the terms of the contract, but welcome to Uncle Sam; the Cisco VAR threatened to walk away, and since having that happen would be a Career Limiting Move for my boss, that never happened. Instead, a scapegoat was found. Guess who? The guy in the barrel holding the lantern, looking for one honest VAR.
Cisco Man speak with forked tongue.
Oregon's a "Shall Issue" state, as is Washington; in fact, getting a Washington toter's card for Oregonians is as simple as saying, "I travel in Washington on business". Now, if we could just get reciprocity with Florida.... as only 12 states honor Oregon's toter's card, and the Sunshine State ain't one of 'em.
--
The TSA is a test. It is only a test......
"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." -- Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857.
A buncha "D" cells. Yes, a buncha "D" cells. What do you think are in some of those nifty sealed battery packs, anyway, these days?
a ble-batteries.php
http://www.thomas-distributing.com/cta-d-recharge
has rechargables, Ni-MH "D" cells rated at 12 amp-hours; yes, 12,000 milliamp-hours each, if you hafta be Green. However, the Real Deal, eTanium(TM) is rated at 21.5 AH each:
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/x95.pdf
and even your buy-them-at-three-AM-from-7-11 variety alkalines develop 20.5 AH
http://data.energizer.com/PDFs/e95.pdf
Buy once, run down, throw them away. Cheap, cheap, cheap. You don't need a gauge; your spendy laptop has one.
Add two of these
http://tinyurl.com/4m6my
a little soldering, the right length of cord & the right-sized connector tip
http://tinyurl.com/5x4om
an Bob's Yer Uncle.
Don't add more than you need, and jump across the contacts if you only need seven cells to make the optimal voltage, instead of going over your laptop's rated voltage by more than a volt. The voltage regulator would just have to step down the power, which makes extra heat in your laptop, which slows down your processor, and accelerates battery drain.
Seven of the el cheapo "D" cells plus a jumper wire give me 20.5 AH for $10, plus $2 in parts and the connector I scrounged off a blown power supply. That's 10.7 times the capacity of the standard battery (2 hour run time) on my Fujitsu Lifebook. Geez, fly to Oz on those suckers. Then, I can go to a 7-11 there, buy another set of "D" cells, and have juice for the flight home.
If you're neither handy nor handsome, Mouser
http://tinyurl.com/6wq7g
has every power connector in the Twelve Colonies,
http://scifi.com/battlestar/downloads/podcast
everything the Lords of Kobol ever designed. Or, pay $10 to The Shack for the aforementioned iGo tip, cuz, well, iGo tips are right there in the store, where the rest of your parts are.
Too bulky? You can downsize it to "C" cells, or even "AA" cells, as seven "AA" batteries exceed the capacity of my spendy, storebought factory battery pack by 50%.
But, then, I'm a ham, one of the crash test dummies of the electronics world, and we do these things so you don't have to.
Becuase, as my wife's Abnormal Psych prof (Whitman College, Walla Walla WA) once sagely noted...
"Half of all folks are below average."
2. I got my license because of a bulletin from SANS in August, 2001 (note date) that warned disasters would likely down both landline and cellular lines and long distance trunks. Tne, 9/11 validated that; disaster workers had lousy comm in Manhattan, except for the pager nets and two-way radio.
3. Memorandums of Understanding are the agreements governments use to prearrange working arrangements with ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) units and other VOADs (Volunteer Orgainizations Active in Disaster). Here's the MOU between FEMA and the ARRL/ARES.
4. As Sherman T. Potter said, Mulefeathers! Here's just one shining example which disproves your arguement.
WILD COUNTRY was the book.
I say T-mobile, for they will SMS you to tell you you have mail; other carriers (SPCS) cripped SMS and don't offer e-mail filtering (do I need spam on my PDA? NOT.)
I really don't think it's realistic to expect a no-radio device to compete with one which does. How could anyone expect otherwise?
The Eudora freeware text-only browser is reasonably fast. When combined with lean sites, it does a decent job.
Yes, I miss PQAs, but to keep on the good dside of the carriers, I figure P1 (palmone.com) had to ditch the use of the two-way paging service, because it was just too efficient when compared to data transport over cellular service.
These days, the major customer is the guy who sells your gizmo, and increasingly, that's the cellular provider, who lives and dies by houw much airtime you buy.
QED is another good text editor, with capabilities SiED does not have (e.g., file size limits).
http://www.qland.de/qed/
Been doing this for four years with WeSync freeware. Handles up to 14 different calendars, multiple views. Accepts standard DateBook data from each user.
Contact WeSync.com and ask to beta-test their new stuff. You'll be glad you did.
1) It's bloody cold on the ISS. Extra calories keep them warm.
2) They also have to exercise like demons to minimize the loss of bone and muscle mass. Exercise burns calories.
3) Food is comfort. When you are stuck in a smelly cold can with someone from another culture, wearing the same clothes for a month, sponge bathing only weekly, and on a work schedule which would boggle 99% of us here, damn right they deserve something enjoyable.
Like this one?
http://pocketpccentral.net/sd_256wifi.htm
He's a Marine. They care more about getting the job done than about Grammar Gremlins.
Google's own Gmail Notifier does not work with Win98.. and that's what I have to run at home because of legacy apps. The FireFox notifier worked fine, until Google broke it. Beta or not, this ain't the way to win friends and influence people.
So, true, so true...
If you have a home alarm system,
My home alarm works just fine... since it was rewired properly to connect upstream of all other phones in the house. *Any* phone tech can figure this out, and most alarm techs; just not reporters.
I also took the time to make sure the VOIP box was on the office BBS, just like the PCs, router and cable modem. D'oh.
need to dial 911,
My Vonage account included 911 connectivity, and Vonage is not the only VOIP provider which does. Don't buy VOIP service without it.
use TiVo
Oh, yeah, I want a DVR that thinks I'm gay, or which phones home to tattle on what I watch. Right. DISH Network does not care and does not need to phone home.
or simply want your phone number included in the phone book,
Vonage preserved my listing when I moved my phone number. Even if they did not, your'e saving enough to pay for a listing.
you're likely to be out of luck.
You're likely to be out of luck if you trust reporters.
Because of VoIP's mobility-- subscribers can use any broadband connection anywhere-- emergency operators won't automatically know where the person's calling from.
If I'm away from home, I won't be dragging the VOIP box with me, as it's serving the home alarm system. Remember the newsie just made a big flaming deal about the alarm system?
Even if I took it with me, or used a softphone on my laptop, I certainly would not be so witless as to not report my location when making a 911 call. Geez.
And, as far as high speed pizza delivery, well the Deliverator knows where I am. Changing from Qworst to Vonage did not affect my ability to order in the slightest.
You know, I think this reporter got a press release from a telco filled with FUD and wrote the article based on that. Would anyone here be surprised, were that the case?
Perhaps his column was trimmed by an editor, but Mr Adelstein knows about the U. S. Courts switch to Red Hat in the server room, because he wrote about it last month.
> Did you ever notice that fighters are painted with camoflage paint. Whuich planes? Camo is definately *not* USAF standard because it makes the aircraft *more* visible. Please, give us a break.
{snip}
/s/ A former radio journalist.
> of course all broadcasters already keep recordings of all their output
{snip}
Wrong, wrong, wrong
There are hundreds of small, community-focused radio stations in this nation to which this would be an unreasonable burden. Non-profit radio, community radio, tribal radio, most of whom are on the edge already.
Sure, it's of no consequence to the Robots of ClearChannel, who wish to execute any announcer or operator who deviates nore than 16ms from the scheduled routine. But, for human-operated radio, having to run tape or files 24x7x366 is not cheap, and neither will archiving it in presentable form.
Not every station is automated, and some which ain't make some damned fine radio. But, the FCC once more erects another burden on small stations which the big chains can just blithely march right over.
I have two blogs on Blogger and have yet to receive an invite. Of course, maybe it's because I'm a Registered Repbulican (but only so's ah kin votes agin David Duke twicet, ya see....)