but aren't the best people for this the Nigerian people?
Yeah, right. Just like Nicaragua. Or Afghanistan. Remember Rambo III, dedicated "to the brave afghan nation?", Talibans funded and equipped with stingers by CIA? And what about Saddam's sources for chemical weapons?
If somebody with large $$$ from the west didn't have some interest in keeping status quo in Nigeria it would have changed a long time ago. But by some correctly placed funding one can change wages of every revolution. Sure -you- might think it might be best for them. But just as sure some Mafia boss might think it's best to have a safe place to wash their money. Or to gain some profit from diamond mines that he doesn't -quite- legally own. Or several other reasons too obscure to us mere mortals.
The possiblity of fraud -after- the card is cancelled isn't possible in electronic transactions. This one doesn't allow any other kind. It would be nice if it stopped working as a watch once identified as cancelled.
I bet they don't carry CC numbers as such. It's just that the guy files a paper with his CC number when acquiring the watch, then at the cafe the barman just presses "cash from RFID" and the watch ID gets associated with CC# in the company database and charge the card for the purchase. Anyone without access to the cash register won't have any use for the ID unless they manage to rebuild just the same kind of chip.
Quantum computers are no solution for GIGO problems. The data would get corrupted yet in the ether before reaching the reader, simply multitude of small radio transmitters broadcasting multiple similar (but unique) signals on the same frequency - even before it would get to the quantum core it would be unrecognizable garbage. Unless RFIDs have some "class ID calls" that would say cause coke RFIDs not to respond to "employee RFID" requests. Do they? This could still effectively slashdot a cash register in a supermarket though.
Citizens, YHBT. I congratulate you Jagasian on such a finely crafted troll. Really amazing piece of work, yielding such a reply. HAND. M2'ing "Interesting" fair. Really interesting even though entirely false.
And I wonder if RFID readers are DDoS'able...
on
Casio's Credit Card Watch
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Imagine the day when RFID tags are so common every coke bottle has one. Now cut them off and pack, say, 1000 or more int a match box. Carry them with you at all times. A reader sends a request and gets 1000 replies. 1000 not enough? Get 10.000. I wonder how many replies the reader would be able to handle simultaneously and how efficiently the chips could jam each other.
Yeah, so who forced IE to be integrated with the OS? Sure, don't blame X for being buggy, it's bugginess is result of braindead design. Don't blame me for setting your house on fire, I'm a habitual smoker and can't stand a hour without a smoke. Integration with OS was a conscious and completely wrong move and nobody else is to be blamed for that than Microsoft!
Say, one sysadmin was overlooking 100 computers (say, including a few servers, several client machines, one big iron and several more or less exotic devices). About 50% users needed help - and one in ten employees had a computer. Now thanks to the computers getting easier to maintain only 5% of users need help. But meantime the company bought something like 1000 computers, every employee has one, and the admin still needs to pay attention to 50 boxes on average, only not out of 100 but out of 1000. More computers=more failures which counter-ballances the...dubious... growth of reliablity.
Yeah, people keep mentioning dust, solar panels, batteries degrading... These can work several years if developed properly. What is the worst nemesis that can change the fate of the rovers in matter of hours are the martian storms. With wind blowing 200-400km/h, object the size of the rover without a solid shelter firmly bolted to the ground will just take off and fly bouncing randomly at speed not much lower than the wind. Then just a random rock on route, *smash* and pick the pieces of the rover over next 5000 kilometers of martian desert.
On the other hand, there was an idea of "tumbleweed" style probes that would travel with the storms, designed with surviving the storm in mind. But Spirit and Opportunity will live only until the first storm and they are extremely lucky it hasn't happened yet.
For a coder it's pretty much useless. True you can write #define in caps, but that's about it. But I watch people writing documents, papers, such stuff and now and then caps lock comes in handy when you need i.e. to write the institution name in all caps, put some extra notice or just change font to 72px and write a short anouncement like "NO SMOKING" or "WASH GLASS AFTER USE".
Heh, they risk it won't ever get out of the crater? Now what a pity would that be. They shouldn't pack it into the rocket and keep it on earth because here it wouldn't be put at risk of getting damaged.
Okay, sarcasm aside: What reason would there be for Opportunity ever (before its technical death) to leave the crater? The surroundings are well examined and there's a strong doubt anything more interesting will be found outside the crater, and after all the probes are there not to PERFORM as much examinations and tests as possible but to FIND interesting things. You can ride around in circles and examine the same rock over and over for years finding nothing new, or you can move on into new, maybe more dangerous terrain, but find what you seek in matter of hours. Are we trying to make a progress or just to beat the time record?
The basis is experience with other stuff. Life of a product may be extended 300-500%, sometimes 1000%, but rarely more. If the design isn't long-lived up front, it won't get extra-long-lived through development. There's been a considerable amount of research on OLED lifetime done already, and they got to the pathetic 1000h until now. There's certain level after every next percent gained gets very expensive and further research just doesn't pay. You just need to change the complete technology. (just think developing vacuum tubes as mainstream product further instead of replacing them with transistors) So, I expect they will get to 5000h, with a lot of luck luck to 10-20.000, that's still not very much. Plus the research doesn't really pay - build a TV that lasts 10 years in perfect condition and the customer won't buy another TV from you in next 10 years. On the other hand, reducing the cost to less than 1% the original (note: cost, not price) is quite common.
I've always wondered if you'd cause a plasma leak if you punctured a hole in your monitor...
Yeah. If you open up your CD-Rom a laser ray will shot at your ceiling too. There's voltage in your keyboard, and a CRT monitor contains an electron cannon. And your inkjet printer launches hot ink steam at the paper at high velocity! What a dangerous world we live in! ps. Did you know there is MAGNETIC FIELD around your speakers?
I'd rather see plasmas going so cheap that you can replace one once a year. Though tese beasts are so power-hungry I can't imagine a PDA with a plasma screen.
I'm afraid they won't be able to increase the life time for OLEDs much. But the technology sounds promising that the prices may drop so significantly, that you just buy a PDA and get a replacement display as often as replacement batteries, only much cheaper:)
5h a day, 200 days in a year, that's 2 years. Plus the problem is about the color ones. B&W may get fuzzy at worst. In color ones, colors mix. The display will work much longer than 1000 hours, but the colors will be a bad mess.
Except the worst pain about OLEDs nowadays is that they burn out (or more like diffuse and get blurry) way faster than anything else - that's the barrier that keeps them from entering the market.
Slashdot Mirror
Reformat, Reinstall, Reconfigure.
who first starts selling paper hats made of that wallpaper.
Definitely better than tinfoil.
I guess ThinkGeek would find many customers on slashdot...
but aren't the best people for this the Nigerian people?
Yeah, right. Just like Nicaragua. Or Afghanistan. Remember Rambo III, dedicated "to the brave afghan nation?", Talibans funded and equipped with stingers by CIA? And what about Saddam's sources for chemical weapons?
If somebody with large $$$ from the west didn't have some interest in keeping status quo in Nigeria it would have changed a long time ago. But by some correctly placed funding one can change wages of every revolution. Sure -you- might think it might be best for them. But just as sure some Mafia boss might think it's best to have a safe place to wash their money. Or to gain some profit from diamond mines that he doesn't -quite- legally own. Or several other reasons too obscure to us mere mortals.
$200 plus international phone charges per call and no positive solution guarantee vs google, then /join #debian - how's that for support costs?
You imply all math is false. GOAT.
The possiblity of fraud -after- the card is cancelled isn't possible in electronic transactions. This one doesn't allow any other kind.
It would be nice if it stopped working as a watch once identified as cancelled.
I bet they don't carry CC numbers as such. It's just that the guy files a paper with his CC number when acquiring the watch, then at the cafe the barman just presses "cash from RFID" and the watch ID gets associated with CC# in the company database and charge the card for the purchase. Anyone without access to the cash register won't have any use for the ID unless they manage to rebuild just the same kind of chip.
A typical disposable camera has no circuitry at all. The "high-end" ones have some flash-related, no real IC though.
Quantum computers are no solution for GIGO problems. The data would get corrupted yet in the ether before reaching the reader, simply multitude of small radio transmitters broadcasting multiple similar (but unique) signals on the same frequency - even before it would get to the quantum core it would be unrecognizable garbage.
Unless RFIDs have some "class ID calls" that would say cause coke RFIDs not to respond to "employee RFID" requests. Do they? This could still effectively slashdot a cash register in a supermarket though.
Citizens, YHBT.
I congratulate you Jagasian on such a finely crafted troll. Really amazing piece of work, yielding such a reply.
HAND.
M2'ing "Interesting" fair. Really interesting even though entirely false.
Imagine the day when RFID tags are so common every coke bottle has one. Now cut them off and pack, say, 1000 or more int a match box. Carry them with you at all times. A reader sends a request and gets 1000 replies. 1000 not enough? Get 10.000. I wonder how many replies the reader would be able to handle simultaneously and how efficiently the chips could jam each other.
Yeah, so who forced IE to be integrated with the OS?
Sure, don't blame X for being buggy, it's bugginess is result of braindead design.
Don't blame me for setting your house on fire, I'm a habitual smoker and can't stand a hour without a smoke.
Integration with OS was a conscious and completely wrong move and nobody else is to be blamed for that than Microsoft!
Say, one sysadmin was overlooking 100 computers (say, including a few servers, several client machines, one big iron and several more or less exotic devices). About 50% users needed help - and one in ten employees had a computer. ...dubious... growth of reliablity.
Now thanks to the computers getting easier to maintain only 5% of users need help. But meantime the company bought something like 1000 computers, every employee has one, and the admin still needs to pay attention to 50 boxes on average, only not out of 100 but out of 1000. More computers=more failures which counter-ballances the
Won't work. Too much prior art.
Negative obstacles are going to be a problem (i.e. holes in the ground , stairs, bottomless pits, etc).
Bottomless pits are none of a problem, just add steering fins.
Now, pits that DO have a bottom, these mean some serious problem!
So just apply high pressure and mod it into diamonds! THAT would make all the kids who got plain toys envious!
Yeah, people keep mentioning dust, solar panels, batteries degrading...
These can work several years if developed properly.
What is the worst nemesis that can change the fate of the rovers in matter of hours are the martian storms. With wind blowing 200-400km/h, object the size of the rover without a solid shelter firmly bolted to the ground will just take off and fly bouncing randomly at speed not much lower than the wind. Then just a random rock on route, *smash* and pick the pieces of the rover over next 5000 kilometers of martian desert.
On the other hand, there was an idea of "tumbleweed" style probes that would travel with the storms, designed with surviving the storm in mind. But Spirit and Opportunity will live only until the first storm and they are extremely lucky it hasn't happened yet.
For a coder it's pretty much useless. True you can write #define in caps, but that's about it.
But I watch people writing documents, papers, such stuff and now and then caps lock comes in handy when you need i.e. to write the institution name in all caps, put some extra notice or just change font to 72px and write a short anouncement like "NO SMOKING" or "WASH GLASS AFTER USE".
Heh, they risk it won't ever get out of the crater? Now what a pity would that be.
They shouldn't pack it into the rocket and keep it on earth because here it wouldn't be put at risk of getting damaged.
Okay, sarcasm aside: What reason would there be for Opportunity ever (before its technical death) to leave the crater? The surroundings are well examined and there's a strong doubt anything more interesting will be found outside the crater, and after all the probes are there not to PERFORM as much examinations and tests as possible but to FIND interesting things. You can ride around in circles and examine the same rock over and over for years finding nothing new, or you can move on into new, maybe more dangerous terrain, but find what you seek in matter of hours. Are we trying to make a progress or just to beat the time record?
Over 48h without a break.
The basis is experience with other stuff. Life of a product may be extended 300-500%, sometimes 1000%, but rarely more. If the design isn't long-lived up front, it won't get extra-long-lived through development. There's been a considerable amount of research on OLED lifetime done already, and they got to the pathetic 1000h until now. There's certain level after every next percent gained gets very expensive and further research just doesn't pay. You just need to change the complete technology. (just think developing vacuum tubes as mainstream product further instead of replacing them with transistors)
So, I expect they will get to 5000h, with a lot of luck luck to 10-20.000, that's still not very much. Plus the research doesn't really pay - build a TV that lasts 10 years in perfect condition and the customer won't buy another TV from you in next 10 years.
On the other hand, reducing the cost to less than 1% the original (note: cost, not price) is quite common.
I've always wondered if you'd cause a plasma leak if you punctured a hole in your monitor...
Yeah. If you open up your CD-Rom a laser ray will shot at your ceiling too. There's voltage in your keyboard, and a CRT monitor contains an electron cannon. And your inkjet printer launches hot ink steam at the paper at high velocity! What a dangerous world we live in!
ps. Did you know there is MAGNETIC FIELD around your speakers?
I'd rather see plasmas going so cheap that you can replace one once a year.
:)
Though tese beasts are so power-hungry I can't imagine a PDA with a plasma screen.
I'm afraid they won't be able to increase the life time for OLEDs much. But the technology sounds promising that the prices may drop so significantly, that you just buy a PDA and get a replacement display as often as replacement batteries, only much cheaper
5h a day, 200 days in a year, that's 2 years. Plus the problem is about the color ones. B&W may get fuzzy at worst. In color ones, colors mix. The display will work much longer than 1000 hours, but the colors will be a bad mess.
Except the worst pain about OLEDs nowadays is that they burn out (or more like diffuse and get blurry) way faster than anything else - that's the barrier that keeps them from entering the market.