That's often true of city elections. Many city charters call for "non-partisan" elections for mayor and city council. Because most candidates with any hope of winning belong to a major party, the only consequence of any significance is that party affiliations don't apear on the ballot. If you're registered with any acive party, they'll be sure you know which candidates they "endorse", even if they can't call them official party candidates. It sounds silly, I know, but that's the way things are done in many municipal elections. With electronic voting machines, it doesn't even have the environmental benefit of saving a few quarts of printer's ink!
Times have changed. Once upon a time, the university ran their own grading system on their own computers. They might be inclined to say "nerds do things like that", and quietly change the grades back to what you earned. But a third party has a financial interest in their reputation for due diligence and security, so they will take things more seriously and call in the DA if they find evidence of anything suspicious. Notice the article said they were caught by a routine audit for accuracy of the data transfer to Peoplesoft's system: how does an overburdened university's IT department do that? This is the best kind of press: take over a university's grade records, find a cheater, and turn them in to the proper authorities. If you're the university Chancellor, that's a company you'll want to retain!
Running a jammer is literally a "federal case". Enforcement hasn't been widespread, but that is subject to change based on complaints. The cell phone carriers know how the FCC works and they certainly can complain effectively if they have cause and desire to do so. Illegal jammers conducting denial-of-service attacks on spectrum the carriers paid dearly to license would seem to provide that cause and motivation. Use jammers at your own risk!
SEC. 501. [47 U.S.C. 501] GENERAL PENALTY.
Any person who willfully and knowingly does or causes or suffers to be done any act, matter, or thing, in this Act prohibited or declared to be unlawful, or who willfully and knowingly omits or fails to do any act, matter, or thing in this Act required to be done, or willfully and knowingly causes or suffers such omission or failure, shall upon conviction thereof, be punished for such offense, for which no penalty (other than a forfeiture) is provided in this Act, by a fine of not more than $10,000 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding one year, or both; except that any person, having been once convicted of an offense punishable under this section, who is subsequently convicted of violating any provision of this Act punishable under this section, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10,000 Communications Act of 1934 or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, or both.
SEC. 502. [47 U.S.C. 502] VIOLATION OF RULES, REGULATIONS, AND SO FORTH.
Any person who willfully and knowingly violates any rule, regulation, restriction, or condition made or imposed by the Commission under authority of this Act, or any rule, regulation, restriction, or condition made or imposed by any international radio or wire communications treaty or convention, or regulations annexed thereto, to which the United States is or may hereafter become a party, shall, in addition to any other penalties provided by law, be punished, upon conviction thereof, by a fine of not more than $500 for each and every day during which such offense occurs.(quotation from the communications act,47 U.S.C 501(large pdf!)
The article cites companies saying their growth market is in countries where most people have never owned a PC before, and also that existing customers see no compelling reason to upgrade. The average user is happy with the PC they have, indeed they don't even use all the system capability they already own. They prefer to spend their money on something else. In the wealthy "developed" world, a PC now is a commodity appliance rather than a trendy status symbol. It's all part of an innovation becoming a mature product.
At 2.80W idle and 3.45W active for 128GB capacity, this SATA flash drive(pdf warning, power specs on pg. 9) uses slightly more W/GB than the Hitachi drive, but less than most mechanical disks. Hats off to Hitachi for delivering low power consumption with decent performance! If the other parts of our desktops were as efficient, we wouldn't need 300W PSUs for systems that do little more than email and web browsing.
Not much debris would be attracted to the magnets. Because of the astronomical cost of orbiting each gram of material, iron and steel are unpopular choices for space craft construction.
"A geosynchronous orbit stays above the equator, hovering over a particular spot on the Earth's surface. As such, it will spend, on average, exactly 50% of the time in sunlight (ie. when it is sunny at the point on the Earth directly below it), and 50% of the time in darkness (ie. when the Earth is between the satellite and the sun). So, 12 hours a day."
That would be true for LEO satellites, but not for this project. Geosynchronous orbits are many time the diameter of the earth. The orbit radius is 42165km, compared to 6363km for the earth. The eclipse zone is no more than 17.4 degrees, less than 70 minutes long. Because the earth's axis is inclined to the its solar orbit, the long eclipses occur at the equinoxes. For much of the year, a geosynchronous satellite never passes through the earth's shadow at all, remaining in full sunlight 24 hours a day.
There's probably a decent demand for the parts. Only the same type replacement parts should be used in certified systems such as voting machines (fellow cynics please note: should be!). Since the hardware now is many years old, scavenging cast-off equipment for usable parts may be the best way to keep them running, perhaps the only way.
Here's my question: why is the maximum 16 bit unsigned value significant in the first place? Excel runs under Windows, and Windows runs on 32 bit processors. It seems improbable that new code would have bugs like this. Did they link in old 16 bit functions by mistake?
The batteries implicated in the fires were advanced, very expensive lithium-metal-polymer types developed and built by Avestor. They were built for long-life outdoor installations: rated for -40C to 65C, temperature regulated, self monitoring: these were no low end batteries! AT&T retained an independent failure investigation quoted here, which "...found that the battery design was sound, as were the safety features, and concluded that the risk of hazardous failures with this battery is as low, if not lower, than the risk with alternative batteries, which are used by other telecommunications and cable companies in similar applications."
While the technology was impressive, the business was unprofitable and Avestor closed in 2005.
On one hand the government insists reporters name their anonymous sources. Refusal to answer is contempt of court.
On the other hand, the reporter is forbidden to name their source if that person is employed by the NHTSA.
That sort of dilemna seems destined to trigger a long series of court challenges and appeals. This regulation is one that only a lawyer would impose. Wait, Ms. Nason's background and qualifications are... Oh, never mind!
Yes, that's right. If one sample meets the limit and another does not, how would the test tech know which one was truly defective? In the case of interference testing, a broken product often seems better than the working one (it's likely to have fewer or weaker signals making noise, hence lower interference measurements). The unit was tested as received, and that sample's performance determines "pass" or "fail".
The nature of certification tests is that the test sample represents all products shipped. It's the manufacturers' responsibility to deliver working test samples. If the manufacturer didn't have anybody present to demonstrate the failing unit really was broken, the test technician not only was justified in giving a "test failure" verdict, but as an independent evaluator also was obligated to do so.
The Southern California Timing Association will have the results of this year's Bonneville trials on-line, along with many photos. Today is the first day of the trials, so no results are in yet. There's still daylight out on the flats.
The company should have much more to offer than just the source code. Given that the machine is to be used as evidence in court and was purchased under contract to state specifications, there should be Engineering documentation backing up its design and performance (that's capital-E Engineering, signed off by a P.E. licensed to practice in Minnesota). For example, have the device's hardware and software reliability been demonstrated to meet any industry standards for quality and reliability? There are standards for household appliances* that require such documentation for their embedded software's safety features. Evidence in criminal cases can hardly be held to less stringent quality standards than a household thermostat. That documentation should exist, and the attorney probably is trying to either get it into evidence or make the company admit it doesn't exist.
(*) Software is covered in Annex H of EN/IEC/UL 60730-1
It's simple, really. Politicians spend your money to build new roads, bridges, etc. so that they can put their names on them. Free re-election ads permanently posted on every route into the city, that's what we're talking about! How much publicity is there in replacing the rusted out girders and adding earthquake retrofits?
There is only one thing you can say confidently about leading-edge technology: someday you'll be replacing it with something newer. Since your walls are uncovered, you have a golden opportunity to install conduits and junction boxes from the living spaces into the attic, crawl space, or basement. When you want to upgrade, there will be no cutting holes in walls and trying to snake the cables where you want them to go. Plan ahead: prepare for the inevitable upgrades!
Students aren't assets, but their tuition payments, textbook purchases and "student fees" certainly are. Heaven forbid that anyone but a paying customer sets foot on campus!
It sounds cool and convenient, and unlike the RF couplers that have cropped up lately they are up-front about efficiency: >80%, which they achieve by activating only the area where the power "receiver" sits--not blanketing a large area. However, the energy-conservation targets set by EPA, California, etc. are even higher. There needs to be further improvements before this can be a marketable solution. I hope they happen soon!
The truth of the matter is that customer service departments lose money. It does on the sales you've already made, that's true. The point of having outstanding customer service is to make money on future sales. Poor customer service means losing sales not only to that customer, but also to potential customers who hear about it. Bad news travels faster and further than good, so it's important to keep the bad news from happening. Otherwise the whole world reads about it on slashdot.
S.O.P. and laws vary from place to place, but around here a police car or ambulance approaches the red light carefully, with siren, flashing red lights, and traffic signal control strobe running. The driver does not enter the intersection against a red light unless all other traffic has yielded to them. If that means they need to slow down or stop, they brake!. Even though the law requires all other traffic to yield to emergency vehicles with flashing lights, their driver is as much responsible for avoiding a collision as the other driver who failed to yield. Failure to yield to emergency vehicles happens often, watch the morons zip past the next time you pull to the side for a car with flashing red lights. As the bumper sticker says, they need to "Hang up and drive!"
I've seen that episode several times. They used "round dial" instruments from a salvage yard, not a computerized "glass cockpit" from a fly-by-wire airliner. A cell phone transmitter at 800Mhz-2GHz is not likely to interfere with an 400Hz electro-mechanical synchro, magnetic compasses, gyroscopes, 120MHz VOR receivers, etc. Digital instruments are quite another story, and they didn't test those. That episode was like testing the electrical system of a '66 VW to draw conclusions about the electronics in a Prius. Mythbusters is great technical entertainment, but not rigorous engineering tests. Remember: "Don't try this at home. Ever!"
Also: If real testing were done, and the nature of the problem fully understood, it would become obvious that airplanes could be designed or retrofitted with shielding and communications systems that would enable safe calling through all phases of flight. But that would cost money.
Real testing has been done. Unintended emissions from the phone have been identified as the culprit, not a deficiency in the navigation equipment. The aircraft's receivers are doing exactly what they are supposed to, responding to signals of certain frequencies arriving at the antenna. Once the phone pollutes the spectrum with spurious signals, nothing can protect the receiver. The shielding and filtering must be applied at the problem, which is the phone. Since the competitive consumer phone market demands the lowest possible cost, once a phone meets the minimum legal requirements they won't add another dime of product cost for further interference control.
Intereference does not occur every time, but when it does occur there has been a demonstrable cause and effect relationship. Start with this NASA case study(long pdf warning).
In July 2003, it was reported to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that a cellular phone when turned on simultaneously interfered with three different aircraft GPS receivers, causing complete signal loss. The three GPS receivers were using three separate antennas, and were installed on a small aircraft. The phone was on, however, calls were not made during the incidents and subsequent tests. [emphasis added]
In an email message to the FAA, the company who owned the airplane reported the subsequent tests taken to prove a clear and convincing direct relationship between the phone being in ON-mode, and interference with the three onboard GPS systems. The company verified several times, in multiple flights over different days, that the interference problem could be recreated reliably in the air by having the phone turned on. The interference disappeared when the phone was turned off or covered behind a metal object, and re-appeared when turned on or brought into the open again. In addition, the company conducted tests at two different places to ensure that it was not dependent on location, and were able to reproduce the interference effects at both. The interference occurred when the plane was in the air, but not on the ground. Tests using other phones did not create interference problems on the same aircraft and systems.
Then consider this article from Spectrum. On page 3:
Our data and the NASA studies suggest to us that there is a clear and present danger: cellphones can render GPS instrument useless for landings. Clearly, the cause of the problem is that the FCC issues RF emission standards for consumer electronics, conferring only minimally with the FAA and with no formal consideration of the implications of those standards for the aircraft environment. For its part, the FAA relies on the airlines to initiate safety plans and, like other government agencies, defers to the FCC on questions of electromagnetic radiation.
And from page 4:
All in all, we found 125 entries in the ASRS [Aviation Safety Reporting System] database that reported PED interference. Of these, 77 were considered highly correlated, based on the description of observed PED use and interference occurrence.[emphasis added] The reports included cases of critical aircraft systems such as navigation and throttle settings being affected. Based on the random sample entries from 1995 to 2001, we estimate that the average number of reported interference events might be as high as 23 per year.
This concept has a strong point, and that's the ability to transport a pre-configured data center by truck, train, ship, or cargo plane. If you suffer a fire, flood, or other accident that knocks your site out of commission, just write a check and have your business running again tomorrow from a temporary data center parked out back (you do have up-to-date off-site backups for your data, right?). With the incredible lost-business cost of down-time there may even be a market for "insurance plans", where a portable data center is at your disposal in exchange for an annual premium payment.
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That's often true of city elections. Many city charters call for "non-partisan" elections for mayor and city council. Because most candidates with any hope of winning belong to a major party, the only consequence of any significance is that party affiliations don't apear on the ballot. If you're registered with any acive party, they'll be sure you know which candidates they "endorse", even if they can't call them official party candidates. It sounds silly, I know, but that's the way things are done in many municipal elections. With electronic voting machines, it doesn't even have the environmental benefit of saving a few quarts of printer's ink!
Times have changed. Once upon a time, the university ran their own grading system on their own computers. They might be inclined to say "nerds do things like that", and quietly change the grades back to what you earned. But a third party has a financial interest in their reputation for due diligence and security, so they will take things more seriously and call in the DA if they find evidence of anything suspicious. Notice the article said they were caught by a routine audit for accuracy of the data transfer to Peoplesoft's system: how does an overburdened university's IT department do that? This is the best kind of press: take over a university's grade records, find a cheater, and turn them in to the proper authorities. If you're the university Chancellor, that's a company you'll want to retain!
The article cites companies saying their growth market is in countries where most people have never owned a PC before, and also that existing customers see no compelling reason to upgrade. The average user is happy with the PC they have, indeed they don't even use all the system capability they already own. They prefer to spend their money on something else. In the wealthy "developed" world, a PC now is a commodity appliance rather than a trendy status symbol. It's all part of an innovation becoming a mature product.
At 2.80W idle and 3.45W active for 128GB capacity, this SATA flash drive(pdf warning, power specs on pg. 9) uses slightly more W/GB than the Hitachi drive, but less than most mechanical disks. Hats off to Hitachi for delivering low power consumption with decent performance! If the other parts of our desktops were as efficient, we wouldn't need 300W PSUs for systems that do little more than email and web browsing.
Not much debris would be attracted to the magnets. Because of the astronomical cost of orbiting each gram of material, iron and steel are unpopular choices for space craft construction.
"Assuming dry pavement, That M5 likely would stop from 100 MPH in in under 200 feet."
a=v^2/(2d)
v=100mph=147ft/sec
d=200ft
a=53.8ft/sec^2=1.68gee
Maybe that's possible on sticky racing tires, but it's quite unlikely with any street-legal tires!
"A geosynchronous orbit stays above the equator, hovering over a particular spot on the Earth's surface. As such, it will spend, on average, exactly 50% of the time in sunlight (ie. when it is sunny at the point on the Earth directly below it), and 50% of the time in darkness (ie. when the Earth is between the satellite and the sun). So, 12 hours a day."
That would be true for LEO satellites, but not for this project. Geosynchronous orbits are many time the diameter of the earth. The orbit radius is 42165km, compared to 6363km for the earth. The eclipse zone is no more than 17.4 degrees, less than 70 minutes long. Because the earth's axis is inclined to the its solar orbit, the long eclipses occur at the equinoxes. For much of the year, a geosynchronous satellite never passes through the earth's shadow at all, remaining in full sunlight 24 hours a day.
There's probably a decent demand for the parts. Only the same type replacement parts should be used in certified systems such as voting machines (fellow cynics please note: should be! ). Since the hardware now is many years old, scavenging cast-off equipment for usable parts may be the best way to keep them running, perhaps the only way.
Here's my question: why is the maximum 16 bit unsigned value significant in the first place? Excel runs under Windows, and Windows runs on 32 bit processors. It seems improbable that new code would have bugs like this. Did they link in old 16 bit functions by mistake?
The batteries implicated in the fires were advanced, very expensive lithium-metal-polymer types developed and built by Avestor. They were built for long-life outdoor installations: rated for -40C to 65C, temperature regulated, self monitoring: these were no low end batteries! AT&T retained an independent failure investigation quoted here, which "...found that the battery design was sound, as were the safety features, and concluded that the risk of hazardous failures with this battery is as low, if not lower, than the risk with alternative batteries, which are used by other telecommunications and cable companies in similar applications."
While the technology was impressive, the business was unprofitable and Avestor closed in 2005.
On one hand the government insists reporters name their anonymous sources. Refusal to answer is contempt of court.
On the other hand, the reporter is forbidden to name their source if that person is employed by the NHTSA.
That sort of dilemna seems destined to trigger a long series of court challenges and appeals. This regulation is one that only a lawyer would impose. Wait, Ms. Nason's background and qualifications are... Oh, never mind!
Diana Moon Glampers certainly thought so! (How could this thread go on so long without a reference to Harrison Bergeron?)
Yes, that's right. If one sample meets the limit and another does not, how would the test tech know which one was truly defective? In the case of interference testing, a broken product often seems better than the working one (it's likely to have fewer or weaker signals making noise, hence lower interference measurements). The unit was tested as received, and that sample's performance determines "pass" or "fail".
The nature of certification tests is that the test sample represents all products shipped. It's the manufacturers' responsibility to deliver working test samples. If the manufacturer didn't have anybody present to demonstrate the failing unit really was broken, the test technician not only was justified in giving a "test failure" verdict, but as an independent evaluator also was obligated to do so.
The Southern California Timing Association will have the results of this year's Bonneville trials on-line, along with many photos. Today is the first day of the trials, so no results are in yet. There's still daylight out on the flats.
The company should have much more to offer than just the source code. Given that the machine is to be used as evidence in court and was purchased under contract to state specifications, there should be Engineering documentation backing up its design and performance (that's capital-E Engineering, signed off by a P.E. licensed to practice in Minnesota). For example, have the device's hardware and software reliability been demonstrated to meet any industry standards for quality and reliability? There are standards for household appliances* that require such documentation for their embedded software's safety features. Evidence in criminal cases can hardly be held to less stringent quality standards than a household thermostat. That documentation should exist, and the attorney probably is trying to either get it into evidence or make the company admit it doesn't exist.
(*) Software is covered in Annex H of EN/IEC/UL 60730-1
It's simple, really. Politicians spend your money to build new roads, bridges, etc. so that they can put their names on them. Free re-election ads permanently posted on every route into the city, that's what we're talking about! How much publicity is there in replacing the rusted out girders and adding earthquake retrofits?
There is only one thing you can say confidently about leading-edge technology: someday you'll be replacing it with something newer. Since your walls are uncovered, you have a golden opportunity to install conduits and junction boxes from the living spaces into the attic, crawl space, or basement. When you want to upgrade, there will be no cutting holes in walls and trying to snake the cables where you want them to go. Plan ahead: prepare for the inevitable upgrades!
Students aren't assets, but their tuition payments, textbook purchases and "student fees" certainly are. Heaven forbid that anyone but a paying customer sets foot on campus!
It sounds cool and convenient, and unlike the RF couplers that have cropped up lately they are up-front about efficiency: >80%, which they achieve by activating only the area where the power "receiver" sits--not blanketing a large area. However, the energy-conservation targets set by EPA, California, etc. are even higher. There needs to be further improvements before this can be a marketable solution. I hope they happen soon!
The truth of the matter is that customer service departments lose money. It does on the sales you've already made, that's true. The point of having outstanding customer service is to make money on future sales. Poor customer service means losing sales not only to that customer, but also to potential customers who hear about it. Bad news travels faster and further than good, so it's important to keep the bad news from happening. Otherwise the whole world reads about it on slashdot.
S.O.P. and laws vary from place to place, but around here a police car or ambulance approaches the red light carefully, with siren, flashing red lights, and traffic signal control strobe running. The driver does not enter the intersection against a red light unless all other traffic has yielded to them. If that means they need to slow down or stop, they brake!. Even though the law requires all other traffic to yield to emergency vehicles with flashing lights, their driver is as much responsible for avoiding a collision as the other driver who failed to yield. Failure to yield to emergency vehicles happens often, watch the morons zip past the next time you pull to the side for a car with flashing red lights. As the bumper sticker says, they need to "Hang up and drive!"
I've seen that episode several times. They used "round dial" instruments from a salvage yard, not a computerized "glass cockpit" from a fly-by-wire airliner. A cell phone transmitter at 800Mhz-2GHz is not likely to interfere with an 400Hz electro-mechanical synchro, magnetic compasses, gyroscopes, 120MHz VOR receivers, etc. Digital instruments are quite another story, and they didn't test those. That episode was like testing the electrical system of a '66 VW to draw conclusions about the electronics in a Prius. Mythbusters is great technical entertainment, but not rigorous engineering tests. Remember: "Don't try this at home. Ever!"
TFA says:
Real testing has been done. Unintended emissions from the phone have been identified as the culprit, not a deficiency in the navigation equipment. The aircraft's receivers are doing exactly what they are supposed to, responding to signals of certain frequencies arriving at the antenna. Once the phone pollutes the spectrum with spurious signals, nothing can protect the receiver. The shielding and filtering must be applied at the problem, which is the phone. Since the competitive consumer phone market demands the lowest possible cost, once a phone meets the minimum legal requirements they won't add another dime of product cost for further interference control.
Intereference does not occur every time, but when it does occur there has been a demonstrable cause and effect relationship. Start with this NASA case study(long pdf warning).
Then consider this article from Spectrum. On page 3:
And from page 4:
It's no conspiracy, and no urban lege
This concept has a strong point, and that's the ability to transport a pre-configured data center by truck, train, ship, or cargo plane. If you suffer a fire, flood, or other accident that knocks your site out of commission, just write a check and have your business running again tomorrow from a temporary data center parked out back (you do have up-to-date off-site backups for your data, right?). With the incredible lost-business cost of down-time there may even be a market for "insurance plans", where a portable data center is at your disposal in exchange for an annual premium payment.