And cooling is also easier to get if you are located close to the sea or a major river. If you are lucky you can use the cool water "as is" to cool your data center and through that lower the cost for cooling a lot. Only the cost of the energy needed to pump the water is what will remain.
Water cooling of the data centers in combination with water cooled servers could be the answer. Could even keep down the noise in the data center.
And the cost of cooling will make sites where natural cooling is possible more attractive than other sites.
The cards with a visible chip aren't the problem, it's the cards with hidden chips that communicates with radio that are.
The contact-chips have a different set of problems and attack vectors but they are safer than the magnetic strip. Recently some skimming equipment has been found for the chip cards. As for NFC cards you can be further away to skim them.
It is possible to successfully read the data exchanged with a NFC card up to 2 meters away. Just have a decent snooping device in your backpack or handbag and you can sniff the transactions of other people.
You can have a transmitter with decent power at 13.56MHz that you turn on when you get in an area with NFC readers and see how many checkouts that fails to work.
There are a few other listed security issues too with NFC cards here: MMN-o | Blog, for those that aren't able to read Swedish - use the online translator.
Anyway - when it comes to NFC there are different types of cards, some are simple and doesn't have any encryption at all (E.g. Mifare Ultralight), some have an encryption which is very weak and is cracked within minutes (Mifare Classic) and some are running DES, but I expect that it has a few weaknesses too since the exchange between the card and reader is easy to snoop.
The guaranteed distance for a successful reading is 4cm, but that doesn't mean that it has to be that close for a successful reading.
I'm toying around with NFC right now and the distance is 4cm+ for a reading. Our local public transportation company (Västtrafik) uses NFC for the ticket system and there have been numerous accounts of accidental reading of the cards as well as missing to read. They have a system where you have to check in when boarding and check out when leaving - and if you don't check out you will pay for the trip to the end station for that line. And if you have two cards in your wallet it may read the "wrong" card and tax that too.
Humans needs a challenge to thrive. No challenge means that stagnation will occur.
But robots are great for some of the crappier jobs that are health hazards. Cleaning the sewers, working in a lethal (to humans) environment etc.
However robots lacks the human intuition, which means that they have a hard time to predict what's going to happen and what the alternatives are - and appropriate actions for unexpected situations.
You may not be able to fix the brain, but you can use drugs to put a cap on runaway processes that are the result of a miswired brain.
The problem with mental illness is that the brain gets caught in a feedback loop which manifests itself in various ways. This is probably the price we have to pay for the level of intelligence we have - our brains are unusually complex. Many very creative persons are also known to have had a history of mental disorder of some kind. The balance between genius and madness is always close.
Salvador Dalí was from some perspective a bit crazy, but he was also a very smart and creative person. Franz Kafka was riddled with depressions but nevertheless an important author.
As for experiencing depression/anxiety myself - without the drugs I would be stuck in a bad loop most of the time.
Just realize that when burning in a large centralized furnace there is a possibility to control the process more and have more advanced filters to take out the worst stuff. Compare that to when everyone did burn coal in their own stove at home in London.
Most of the burned garbage is used to feed central heating systems. Same with a lot of other cities in Scandinavia. A few large central furnaces and a big network of hot water pipes.
Not so much to produce electricity. Most of the electricity in Scandinavia is water power or nuclear with a few coal/oil burners that are used for backup in case the current production is insufficient. Add to it a number of windmills but their contribution is small.
There's usually a sliding ground between them - if you look at books like the Dragonriders of Pern you have a wide spectra.
It's also possible to look at Science Fiction from the perspective of trying an idea - which Heinlein was doing a lot - take an idea and write a story around it. Not all ideas are realistic, but it can still be a seed for a nice story.
Add to it the movie and TV series Max Headroom, which really is interesting since it looks much like the future we are heading to. "This is Edison Carter, Live and Direct...".
Science Fiction is a great package for "Thinking outside the box" stories.
It was rocket fuel manufactured there but the chemical composition of it was similar. Ammonium perchlorate compared to Ammonium nitrate for the fertilizer.
Is it that we are going to see a fertilizer blowup happen every decade or so from now on because people aren't smart enough to provide sufficient safety measures?
I agree - it cuts both ways with the use of drones.
- Nothing says that governmental use of drones is safe or not an invasion of privacy.
- Nothing says that private use of drones is unsafe or an invasion of privacy.
In the end it's a human behind the controls. And from another perspective - if the government starts to watch you I would be a lot more worried than if a neighbor was. If you feel that your neighbor is spying on you then either you already have a problem or the neighbor is the problem of the neighborhood.
I can think of legal uses for private drones too - especially if you have a large property like a farm and want to keep track of where your sheep are (or whatever).
I used to think that the US was the leading tech country, but after a few visits I have realized that there percentage of people actually working with and knowing some high tech stuff are very small compared to the population and that the volume of the US population are living almost from day to day due to property taxes and low income.
One cause for the lack of demand of electrical engineers is that the hardware design and manufacturing is located to cheaper countries. However this also means that the competence level of the existing engineers declines slowly since they lack the experience from production.
The reason for people picking Android is because they can get the apps they like for it without too much fuzz and if they can't they can just make it themselves or hire someone to do it.
Android is a bit like MS-Dos was in the beginning - everyone had it, no big mess around to get something running on it. Of course - the downside is the risk for malware, which appears to be one of the problems Android is seeing these days.
But the reason why the other companies complains is that their business model isn't as attractive and therefore they try to gain an edge in court instead.
I agree - she did what she believed in, I didn't agree with her politics from all perspective, but she was able to get things done. Even when she was wrong she was right.
It may not have been the right things in all cases, but she didn't hesitate to do the necessary hard things as well as the less necessary easy.
And from time to time a strong charismatic person that gets things done is necessary - Britain was really in a bad situation with a stagnant system and severe inflation when she took over. Her actions did hurt a lot of people, but at the same time it also opened up new opportunities.
Considering the situation of both the EU and the US today it would certainly not be a bad time for someone like her to show up and straighten out some of the idlers in Brussels.
I agree - reading his books is definitely back to the core values of Science Fiction - let a great idea be the base for stories that are amazing. Each new book has a new thread to follow independent of the others and at the same time that thread is a part of a great weave.
I would like to call his Culture books Epic. He has earned a top position among authors like Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Vance, Van Vogt and Bester to name a few.
The great thing with Science Fiction is that you can take an idea and extrapolate it to a story. You as a reader may not agree with the basic idea (like some do with Heinlein's Starship Troopers) but the story created is still a pleasure to read.
Just realize that when he passes on he has left a decent legacy and mark in literature. It's a privilege that few has earned.
If we at least consider that current theories do have the speed of light in vacuum as a limit it is still possible to exceed the speed of light in other materials like glass and water.
But even if you exceed the speed of light it doesn't mean that the event is observed before it happens. It just means that you get notified about the event faster than expected.
There are also some phenomena that are a bit on the border of being tricky to explain given the theories of today, but they are usually on a small scale involving quantum mechanics - like teleportation of particles. And even the current theories offers "loopholes" for exceeding the speed of light - like spacetime warping and wormholes.
The reason for destroying data - today it may be incriminating data and private information but in 100 years it would be a goldmine for researchers.
When we look back at information from 100 years ago we can't really blame anyone and everything was on paper, and a lot of what we produce today is electronic - what will the researchers in 100 years look at? Are we creating a black hole in history?
Slashdot Mirror
And cooling is also easier to get if you are located close to the sea or a major river. If you are lucky you can use the cool water "as is" to cool your data center and through that lower the cost for cooling a lot. Only the cost of the energy needed to pump the water is what will remain.
Water cooling of the data centers in combination with water cooled servers could be the answer. Could even keep down the noise in the data center.
And the cost of cooling will make sites where natural cooling is possible more attractive than other sites.
The cards with a visible chip aren't the problem, it's the cards with hidden chips that communicates with radio that are.
The contact-chips have a different set of problems and attack vectors but they are safer than the magnetic strip. Recently some skimming equipment has been found for the chip cards. As for NFC cards you can be further away to skim them.
It is possible to successfully read the data exchanged with a NFC card up to 2 meters away. Just have a decent snooping device in your backpack or handbag and you can sniff the transactions of other people.
You can have a transmitter with decent power at 13.56MHz that you turn on when you get in an area with NFC readers and see how many checkouts that fails to work.
There are a few other listed security issues too with NFC cards here: MMN-o | Blog, for those that aren't able to read Swedish - use the online translator.
Yet more reading:
Study on Public Transport Smartcards – Final Report
Do contactless cards expose you to fraud?
Anyway - when it comes to NFC there are different types of cards, some are simple and doesn't have any encryption at all (E.g. Mifare Ultralight), some have an encryption which is very weak and is cracked within minutes (Mifare Classic) and some are running DES, but I expect that it has a few weaknesses too since the exchange between the card and reader is easy to snoop.
The guaranteed distance for a successful reading is 4cm, but that doesn't mean that it has to be that close for a successful reading.
I'm toying around with NFC right now and the distance is 4cm+ for a reading. Our local public transportation company (Västtrafik) uses NFC for the ticket system and there have been numerous accounts of accidental reading of the cards as well as missing to read. They have a system where you have to check in when boarding and check out when leaving - and if you don't check out you will pay for the trip to the end station for that line. And if you have two cards in your wallet it may read the "wrong" card and tax that too.
Humans needs a challenge to thrive. No challenge means that stagnation will occur.
But robots are great for some of the crappier jobs that are health hazards. Cleaning the sewers, working in a lethal (to humans) environment etc.
However robots lacks the human intuition, which means that they have a hard time to predict what's going to happen and what the alternatives are - and appropriate actions for unexpected situations.
You may not be able to fix the brain, but you can use drugs to put a cap on runaway processes that are the result of a miswired brain.
The problem with mental illness is that the brain gets caught in a feedback loop which manifests itself in various ways. This is probably the price we have to pay for the level of intelligence we have - our brains are unusually complex. Many very creative persons are also known to have had a history of mental disorder of some kind. The balance between genius and madness is always close.
Salvador Dalí was from some perspective a bit crazy, but he was also a very smart and creative person. Franz Kafka was riddled with depressions but nevertheless an important author.
As for experiencing depression/anxiety myself - without the drugs I would be stuck in a bad loop most of the time.
Come back after a severe anxiety attack and tell me why you didn't want to have that capped.
You don't put fiber on poles if you are smart, you put it underground.
This means that there's now a market chance for anyone willing to put down optic fiber in the area.
Mod parent up, it's not even surprising.
If this is a new discovery for someone then it's really an indication of how bad education is in the western world.
Except here it's not steam pipes - it's hot water that's pumped through the net, so even if it springs a leak it's not going to be a problem.
Just realize that when burning in a large centralized furnace there is a possibility to control the process more and have more advanced filters to take out the worst stuff. Compare that to when everyone did burn coal in their own stove at home in London.
Most of the burned garbage is used to feed central heating systems. Same with a lot of other cities in Scandinavia. A few large central furnaces and a big network of hot water pipes.
Not so much to produce electricity. Most of the electricity in Scandinavia is water power or nuclear with a few coal/oil burners that are used for backup in case the current production is insufficient. Add to it a number of windmills but their contribution is small.
There's usually a sliding ground between them - if you look at books like the Dragonriders of Pern you have a wide spectra.
It's also possible to look at Science Fiction from the perspective of trying an idea - which Heinlein was doing a lot - take an idea and write a story around it. Not all ideas are realistic, but it can still be a seed for a nice story.
There are also the dystopian stories like Nineteen Eighty-Four, THX 1138 and Kallocain.
Add to it the movie and TV series Max Headroom, which really is interesting since it looks much like the future we are heading to. "This is Edison Carter, Live and Direct...".
Science Fiction is a great package for "Thinking outside the box" stories.
And the result now is that every utility box in the world will be seen as a suspect box.
Watch out for unusual holes in such boxes. The remedy would be to place a sticker over the holes.
And there's a similarity to the Pepcon explosion too.
It was rocket fuel manufactured there but the chemical composition of it was similar. Ammonium perchlorate compared to Ammonium nitrate for the fertilizer.
Is it that we are going to see a fertilizer blowup happen every decade or so from now on because people aren't smart enough to provide sufficient safety measures?
Since I'm supporting an application that uses TeliaSonera certificates on the web server.
And changing to another certificate is probably not on the map since it runs at TeliaSonera.
I agree - it cuts both ways with the use of drones.
- Nothing says that governmental use of drones is safe or not an invasion of privacy.
- Nothing says that private use of drones is unsafe or an invasion of privacy.
In the end it's a human behind the controls. And from another perspective - if the government starts to watch you I would be a lot more worried than if a neighbor was. If you feel that your neighbor is spying on you then either you already have a problem or the neighbor is the problem of the neighborhood.
I can think of legal uses for private drones too - especially if you have a large property like a farm and want to keep track of where your sheep are (or whatever).
I used to think that the US was the leading tech country, but after a few visits I have realized that there percentage of people actually working with and knowing some high tech stuff are very small compared to the population and that the volume of the US population are living almost from day to day due to property taxes and low income.
One cause for the lack of demand of electrical engineers is that the hardware design and manufacturing is located to cheaper countries. However this also means that the competence level of the existing engineers declines slowly since they lack the experience from production.
The reason for people picking Android is because they can get the apps they like for it without too much fuzz and if they can't they can just make it themselves or hire someone to do it.
Android is a bit like MS-Dos was in the beginning - everyone had it, no big mess around to get something running on it. Of course - the downside is the risk for malware, which appears to be one of the problems Android is seeing these days.
But the reason why the other companies complains is that their business model isn't as attractive and therefore they try to gain an edge in court instead.
I agree - she did what she believed in, I didn't agree with her politics from all perspective, but she was able to get things done. Even when she was wrong she was right.
It may not have been the right things in all cases, but she didn't hesitate to do the necessary hard things as well as the less necessary easy.
And from time to time a strong charismatic person that gets things done is necessary - Britain was really in a bad situation with a stagnant system and severe inflation when she took over. Her actions did hurt a lot of people, but at the same time it also opened up new opportunities.
Considering the situation of both the EU and the US today it would certainly not be a bad time for someone like her to show up and straighten out some of the idlers in Brussels.
I agree - reading his books is definitely back to the core values of Science Fiction - let a great idea be the base for stories that are amazing. Each new book has a new thread to follow independent of the others and at the same time that thread is a part of a great weave.
I would like to call his Culture books Epic. He has earned a top position among authors like Clarke, Asimov, Heinlein, Vance, Van Vogt and Bester to name a few.
The great thing with Science Fiction is that you can take an idea and extrapolate it to a story. You as a reader may not agree with the basic idea (like some do with Heinlein's Starship Troopers) but the story created is still a pleasure to read.
Just realize that when he passes on he has left a decent legacy and mark in literature. It's a privilege that few has earned.
If we at least consider that current theories do have the speed of light in vacuum as a limit it is still possible to exceed the speed of light in other materials like glass and water.
But even if you exceed the speed of light it doesn't mean that the event is observed before it happens. It just means that you get notified about the event faster than expected.
There are also some phenomena that are a bit on the border of being tricky to explain given the theories of today, but they are usually on a small scale involving quantum mechanics - like teleportation of particles. And even the current theories offers "loopholes" for exceeding the speed of light - like spacetime warping and wormholes.
The reason for destroying data - today it may be incriminating data and private information but in 100 years it would be a goldmine for researchers.
When we look back at information from 100 years ago we can't really blame anyone and everything was on paper, and a lot of what we produce today is electronic - what will the researchers in 100 years look at? Are we creating a black hole in history?