All HR people would have to do is paste the string "JLSEAGULL/MS ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING/ROSE HULMAN INST OF TECH/2001" and the digital signature into a box and the response would either be "VALID" or "INVALID". How hard can this be?
It is already trivial to do a degree check on someone. All it takes is a phone call--no complicated digital signature required. Since most positions seem to require a copy of your transcript anyway, verifying it by phone should be a standard operating procedure.
The house I live in is 200 years old. The school I went to was over 400. And the pub at the end of our road is nearly 700 years old.
Why do you think a lifetime is a long time?
Not all of us do, but think of your example. The vast majority of Americans live in houses or apartments that are 50 years old or less. The vast majority of Universities in the United States are 150 years old or less. The vast majority of towns and cities are less than 200 years old. You'd be hard pressed to find a bar/club more than 100 years old, although in small towns and college towns the building the bar is in may be that old.
My father in law is from Croatia. He went to high school in a castle that was built well over 600 years ago. The farmhouse they lived in was well over 100 years old.
You get a completely different worldview growing up in a "new" area versus growing up in the old world. Not necessarily better or worse, but different.
They are extremely useful for reviewing material that you once new...
I can not believe that I made such a brain-melting spelling error. I can't even attribute it to mis-typing, unless my K key stuck. Oh, the embarassment...
Modern militaries will be able to effectively "turn off" any GPS-like device that uses radio waves by using localized jamming or spoofing.
Selective availability for the US civilian GPS was turned off in 2000, so the accuracy is no longer artificially degraded. Civilian DGPS (Differntial GPS) provides very high accuracy for spatial data collection, and the advent of WAAS and WAAS-enabled commercial receivers provides extremely high accuracy.
The accuracy of WAAS is phenomenal between one and two meters horizontally and between two to three meters vertically throughout most of the continental United States and large parts of Canada and Alaska. It's also been stated as being "better than three meters 95% of the time."
The following table lists the accuracy of the historical GPS systems:
100 meters: Original GPS system accuracy. This is the advertised accuracy of the GPS system with the Selective Availability (SA) option turned on. SA was an imposed error designed to thwart an enemy's use of GPS for its own purposes. SA was employed by the U.S. Government until May 1, 2000 but has not been used since. According to the Inter Agency GPS Executive Board (IGEB), "The United States has no intent to ever use SA again. To ensure that potential adversaries do not use GPS, the military is dedicated to the development and deployment of regional denial capabilities in lieu of global degradation." [1]
15 meters: This is the best non-SA accuracy. It's considered the "normal" accuracy for the GPS system. 2001 FRS states this as 13 m horizontally and 22 m vertically.
I use GPS in a professional and an academic setting, and I am not terribly impressed with the specifications (as currently released) for the new European system. However, what I am happy about is that I will likely be able to obtain "GPS" devices that will receive US GPS, Glonass, and Galileo simultaneously. I would love to have data from all three systems to compare for a single data collection point.
I would highly recommend the Schaum's Outline series. I'm a physicist, and I have quite a few of them on my shelf next to my textbooks.
They are extremely useful for reviewing material that you once new, and they're not too bad as a text for exploring things you've never formally learned.
Antimatter is the ultimate in energy storage. Creating an antimatter rocket is trivial compared to regular chemical rockets. All you need is a sufficient supply of antimatter and a way to store it and we now have both.
Antimatter may be the ultimate in energy density, but it is not the ultimate in energy storage. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to create that antimatter, much more than you will get from its annihilation with matter.
On to the "trivial" rockets, you may be able to produce lots of thrust with a matter/antimatter engine, but you also produce enormous amounts of radiation. How will you shield the crew compartment, or even the electronics? Lots of heavy metals? More mass = less acceleration.
Finally, the net world production of antimatter is what, femtograms per year? We're nowhere near ready to fuel even one bottle rocket, let alone a spaceship.
A 20 amp circuit will run what, at least a 200 watt HF rig. What does it take to run a kilowatt amp?
Even if you're running Nx10^4 watts out, if you're running SSB that's only going to peak at Nx10^4, not run continuously. So maybe you do need to upgrade your service line...
More to the point, you'll get through, and in all likelihood running those power levels will render the BPL lines unuseable. Sounds like a winning scenario to me.
NASA used liquid cooling garments for temperature control in space suits in the 1960s. They might have been used earlier than that in flight suits for air and space research. You can probably still see one on display at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center's Hall of Space museum.
The broadband-over-oil-pipeline lobby will kill this dead.
I don't recall if it was a joke or not, but I saw a discussion somewhere about using natural gas pipe as a waveguide to establish microwave internet links.
While it isn't the ideal solution, perhaps we should petition the FCC to remove the power limit caps for amateur use, or at least make them dramatically higher.
If it takes 50,000 watts on a three element Yagi to punch through...that's what we should do.
Personally, I'm going to try both much higher power and digital modes like PSK31 (obviously not at the same time) after I upgrade my license.
My wife and I just ordered a Dell E510 for her home office, and one of the options when ordering was the default "System Restore" or "Windows XP Professional Backup CD".
Now, we'll see what that CD is. Possibly just a "System Restore" disk, but if so I'll be calling Dell...(as if that will help, but still...)
How many of you remember the articles in QST and Ham Radio from the 1970's about the ham radio operators that received and decoded the pulse-coded modulation transmissions directly from the moon during the Apollo missions? Yeah, I think we really did go there.
I'm going to go digging anyway, but if you have any source on those articles (issues, online copies, reprints, whatever) I would greatly appreciate the shortcut!
I'd like to claim that this is a victory for ham radio. In a way it is, as it is a radio accomplishment and the fellow is not paid for this. But as it doesn't involve any transmission, it's more of an SWL (ShortWave Listener) accomplishment than an Amateur Radio accomplishment.
I would argue that reception technology is just as important in amateur radio as transmission technology. Ideally, you use both...
Pretty soon Amateur Radio operators will have a working satellite orbiting Mars anyway. I'm not sure exactly what functions it will have (I have only read of it in passing) but it will no doubt be fantastic.
In July 2002 the AMSAT-DL (Germany) board of directors gave its official green light to develop and build the two spacecrafts AMSAT-Phase 3-E (P3E) and AMSAT-Phase 5-A (P5A). Both satellites will be created in a common development process by an international team under the leadership of AMSAT-DL.
The P3E satellite is to be launched as communication and scientific platform into a highly elliptical orbit around Earth.
The second project with the working name "AMSAT- Phase 5-A" is destined to enter an orbit around the planet Mars. This spacecraft will then transmit scientific data to Earth - data from experiments on-board P5A as well as - via its repeater function - from experiments on the Martian surface or the planet's atmosphere.
Cars have VINs and license plates to identify them on public roads. This places some limits on driver freedom but is hardly Orwellian.
TPM, or something like it, could end up in the same category.
You went to McDonald's for lunch...did they record your license plate and/or VIN? Did you drive up to your bank to make a deposit, and if so, did they check your license plate and/or VIN before letting you access your account? Did the city government make record of your license plate and VIN as you traveled through various intersections? Did the park and recreation department take a record of your entrance and exit times when you visited city park?
Basically, just go back and look at all of the arguments that were made when Intel proposed the Processor Serial Number as a GUID. The arguments remain, and will always be, completely valid.
2. Patent examiners have totally insufficient background in technical areas to evaluate them. They're not stupid people, not by any means, but we're talking about bachelors and masters degrees in the sciences with no research experience evaluating cutting-edge technology done by research phds. The fundamental problem is that the examiner is not up to date with what constitutes prior knowledge in a field. If you get a masters degree in computer science that's all very well, but it hardly brings you up to speed on the latest research, which is what is being patented.
A bachelor's or master's is plenty of background. A patent examiner is not, should not be, and can not be, knowledgable about even a reasonable fraction of the "latest research."
A patent examiner must be able to research the claims of a patent to determine whether it is patentable and whether it is already covered by another patent. This takes a well-functioning mind, not a research doctorate.
Frankly, a doctorate may be less desirable than a bachelor's or master's, because a doctorate involves years of intense research into a miniscule slice of a particular sub-field. This does not necessarily prepare someone to research the background of a patent application, it may even hinder their ability to do so. Bachelor's and master's degrees are generally much more broad in scope, and provide a foundation of knowledge for critical analysis of a patent application.
Hah, the US government doesn't want its citizens to renounce their citizenship before moving abroad because then it would lose the ability to doubly tax their foreign earned income.
It is reprehensible that my (previous) informative post was modded flamebait. I link directly to the state department, after all.
Well, at least my first flamebait post wasn't wasted on something useless.
The United States will have no serious problem with the taxation issues. You see, since some citizens were using renunciation as a tax evasion tool, the U.S. Government now retains the power to tax your earnings for something like the ten years prior to, and the ten years following, the renunciation of citizenship. What they really want to avoid is someone waking up with a hangover saying "I renounced what now?"
So, it isn't a big problem as far as the.Gov is concerned.
Slashdot Mirror
Good list of words to use.
It is already trivial to do a degree check on someone. All it takes is a phone call--no complicated digital signature required. Since most positions seem to require a copy of your transcript anyway, verifying it by phone should be a standard operating procedure.
Jim
Not all of us do, but think of your example. The vast majority of Americans live in houses or apartments that are 50 years old or less. The vast majority of Universities in the United States are 150 years old or less. The vast majority of towns and cities are less than 200 years old. You'd be hard pressed to find a bar/club more than 100 years old, although in small towns and college towns the building the bar is in may be that old.
My father in law is from Croatia. He went to high school in a castle that was built well over 600 years ago. The farmhouse they lived in was well over 100 years old.
You get a completely different worldview growing up in a "new" area versus growing up in the old world. Not necessarily better or worse, but different.
They are extremely useful for reviewing material that you once new...
I can not believe that I made such a brain-melting spelling error. I can't even attribute it to mis-typing, unless my K key stuck. Oh, the embarassment...
Selective availability for the US civilian GPS was turned off in 2000, so the accuracy is no longer artificially degraded. Civilian DGPS (Differntial GPS) provides very high accuracy for spatial data collection, and the advent of WAAS and WAAS-enabled commercial receivers provides extremely high accuracy.
From the Wikipedia article on WAAS,
I use GPS in a professional and an academic setting, and I am not terribly impressed with the specifications (as currently released) for the new European system. However, what I am happy about is that I will likely be able to obtain "GPS" devices that will receive US GPS, Glonass, and Galileo simultaneously. I would love to have data from all three systems to compare for a single data collection point.
Jim
I would highly recommend the Schaum's Outline series. I'm a physicist, and I have quite a few of them on my shelf next to my textbooks.
They are extremely useful for reviewing material that you once new, and they're not too bad as a text for exploring things you've never formally learned.
Jim
Antimatter may be the ultimate in energy density, but it is not the ultimate in energy storage. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to create that antimatter, much more than you will get from its annihilation with matter.
On to the "trivial" rockets, you may be able to produce lots of thrust with a matter/antimatter engine, but you also produce enormous amounts of radiation. How will you shield the crew compartment, or even the electronics? Lots of heavy metals? More mass = less acceleration.
Finally, the net world production of antimatter is what, femtograms per year? We're nowhere near ready to fuel even one bottle rocket, let alone a spaceship.
Kingston is planning to release ram modules with a window by Q2 2006
We used to call that "EPROM".
A 20 amp circuit will run what, at least a 200 watt HF rig. What does it take to run a kilowatt amp?
Even if you're running Nx10^4 watts out, if you're running SSB that's only going to peak at Nx10^4, not run continuously. So maybe you do need to upgrade your service line...
More to the point, you'll get through, and in all likelihood running those power levels will render the BPL lines unuseable. Sounds like a winning scenario to me.
Jim
You're right, it isn't new.
NASA used liquid cooling garments for temperature control in space suits in the 1960s. They might have been used earlier than that in flight suits for air and space research. You can probably still see one on display at the Kansas Cosmosphere and Space Center's Hall of Space museum.
Jim
Thanks! Wow, that's a first for me--unsolicited tech support!
Jim
I don't recall if it was a joke or not, but I saw a discussion somewhere about using natural gas pipe as a waveguide to establish microwave internet links.
So, you're not far off...
While it isn't the ideal solution, perhaps we should petition the FCC to remove the power limit caps for amateur use, or at least make them dramatically higher.
If it takes 50,000 watts on a three element Yagi to punch through...that's what we should do.
Personally, I'm going to try both much higher power and digital modes like PSK31 (obviously not at the same time) after I upgrade my license.
Jim
My wife and I just ordered a Dell E510 for her home office, and one of the options when ordering was the default "System Restore" or "Windows XP Professional Backup CD".
Now, we'll see what that CD is. Possibly just a "System Restore" disk, but if so I'll be calling Dell...(as if that will help, but still...)
Jim
I'm going to go digging anyway, but if you have any source on those articles (issues, online copies, reprints, whatever) I would greatly appreciate the shortcut!
I would argue that reception technology is just as important in amateur radio as transmission technology. Ideally, you use both...
Pretty soon Amateur Radio operators will have a working satellite orbiting Mars anyway. I'm not sure exactly what functions it will have (I have only read of it in passing) but it will no doubt be fantastic.
From the Amsat site:
I always wanted to run a BBS. Now I have the time, income, and computer power, and look, Fidonet is still around!
Now where's my copy of QBBS...
You went to McDonald's for lunch...did they record your license plate and/or VIN? Did you drive up to your bank to make a deposit, and if so, did they check your license plate and/or VIN before letting you access your account? Did the city government make record of your license plate and VIN as you traveled through various intersections? Did the park and recreation department take a record of your entrance and exit times when you visited city park?
Basically, just go back and look at all of the arguments that were made when Intel proposed the Processor Serial Number as a GUID. The arguments remain, and will always be, completely valid.
Jim
If it isn't monte carlo, it's the "random" (drunkard's) walk.
You know, you GO into computational physics thinking it's all casinos and drinking, and this is what you find...
Do you have a source for that quote?
It's a great quote, I'd love to be able to use it and attribute it properly.
Jim
If it is really supposed to be a free market, then why the lower limit ($0.25) on price? Shouldn't the market determine the lower limit?
Jim
A bachelor's or master's is plenty of background. A patent examiner is not, should not be, and can not be, knowledgable about even a reasonable fraction of the "latest research."
A patent examiner must be able to research the claims of a patent to determine whether it is patentable and whether it is already covered by another patent. This takes a well-functioning mind, not a research doctorate.
Frankly, a doctorate may be less desirable than a bachelor's or master's, because a doctorate involves years of intense research into a miniscule slice of a particular sub-field. This does not necessarily prepare someone to research the background of a patent application, it may even hinder their ability to do so. Bachelor's and master's degrees are generally much more broad in scope, and provide a foundation of knowledge for critical analysis of a patent application.
Jim
I don't know of any others that do right off, plz chime in if you know.
Discover does have this feature as well.
Jim
It is reprehensible that my (previous) informative post was modded flamebait. I link directly to the state department, after all.
Well, at least my first flamebait post wasn't wasted on something useless.
The United States will have no serious problem with the taxation issues. You see, since some citizens were using renunciation as a tax evasion tool, the U.S. Government now retains the power to tax your earnings for something like the ten years prior to, and the ten years following, the renunciation of citizenship. What they really want to avoid is someone waking up with a hangover saying "I renounced what now?"
So, it isn't a big problem as far as the
Jim
When you go, please formally renounce your US citizenship.
We don't want you back.