I hope the idea of nanosats doesn't get too popular
I suspect it already is. The amateur radio satellites, for example, aren't too much bigger than these. Here's a picture of the most recently launched one, `Echo'. Looks like it's only about 8x as big as the ones that are to be launched...
Hopefully there will be at least one amateur radio satellite with the 50 they're going to launch -- this form factor would seem to be ideal.
Interesting, I haven't heard that. Do you have a
citation?
Well, I thought I did, but I don't seem to be able to find it. Perhaps I mistook `non actionable' for `fair use'. Certainly, I've never heard of anybody getting in trouble for recording a tape from a CD, even if the CD belonged to a friend.
Certainly, kids have been sitting next to their tape recorders waiting to record a particular song for as long as there have been tape recorders, and this has generally been considered legal. Of course, I can't find any citations of that before -- but it tended to predate the Internet too.
Actually the RIAA was the one who claimed it was ok to make copies of CDs to give away to your friends.
It was. It was called fair use.
Now, things like the DMCA have changed the rules for digital media. I think it's still legal to take a cassette tape and copy somebody else's CD , tape or record, but I'm not sure if it's legal to make a copy digitally, like make an mp3 of somebody else's CD (or even tape or record) anymore. I suspect it still is, though I'm sure the RIAA wouldn't agree.
The usual reason for the special treatment for digital media is that `digital copies are just like the original'... and I guess in some cases that's true, but in many cases it's not. An mp3 of a CD is not the same as the CD itself, though the mp3 can be copied (if done properly) through many generations with no further loss of quality, and that's what they claim to be afraid of.
Of course, the RIAA IS getting paid. If you copy a CD onto an Audio CD, the RIAA gets a cut. (It's called the `DAT tax'. Google is your friend if you've never heard of it.) I guess they're just not getting paid enough...
That's only overall sales -- nobody cares about that. The RIAA would like to draw your attention to the falling sales of cassingles, which aren't selling well at all. Thanks to piracy, of course!
If you can't prove something, then it is reasonable to assume that its not true.
Only under certain conditions. I can't prove that the sun will rise tomorrow, but it's not reasonable to assume that it's not going to.
Most companies require you to have a degree, and present proof that you do have it.
A bit of anecdotal anti-evidence: I've never had an employer verify that I have my degrees -- they've just taken my word for it. My degrees aren't really related to the field that I'm working in, but still, they've never even checked. (And yes, I've had more than a few employers in the 19 years I've been in the workforce.)
I'm not american, and we do have national ID cards
To be fair, the US is big. Bigger than most countries. And it's generally (often?) believed that government at the local level is better than government at the national level. Unless you live in China, Canada, India or the USSR (er, scratch the USSR), I don't think too many Americans (yes, I am one) really put too much weight in how you don't mind your national ID card.
Around here, our personal liberties disappearing at a high rate, thanks to the wars on drugs and now terrorism. Many of us see this as a bad thing, and a national ID card is seen as yet another symbol of this -- it may not remove or liberties by itself, but it may make future attempts to deny us liberties easier.
possibly even keyed to the multidimensional gravity vector of the iotas of info.
Impressive. Now just re-route the plasma through the deflector dish and create a static warp field,
and we can make things just like they were 50 minutes ago and wrap this episode up!
Hey, you can ask why but modding down a guess you don't like seems kinda odd.
Huh? Are you talking to me? I don't have any mod points right now, and even if I did,/. wouldn't let me moderate in a discussion that I'm part of...
As for ZackSchil's comment, the parent of yours, I suspect that he may be right, even though he was modded down as a troll by one person (but if you think it was me, you're wrong.)
It only takes a Hotmail account to bring a website down, and freedom of speech
stands no chance in front of the Texan-style private ISP justice.
Living in Texas, I'm not sure what constitutes `Texan-style private ISP justice'. Perhaps Sjoera Nas could explain?
Certainly, ISPs here have been known to overreact to complaints before (and the DMCA gives them specific guidelines that they *must* follow, no matte how unfounded the complaint is) but last I checked, this wasn't specific to Texas. But perhaps these Europeans know something about Texas that I do not...
That works out to about $5.62 extra per month per computer
Ok... now multiply that by 3. Awfully close to $20, wouldn't you say?
Also note that some places may pay more for electricity than you do. Here in Austin, TX, the first 500 kW/month is relatively cheap, then the next 1000 kW/month is about twice as much, and the rest is even more. My average price per kWh works out to about $0.10, but using more power costs me more like $0.12 per kWh. (Also, the electric company shows a nice profit, which goes into the city coffers to pay for libraries and such. It's like another tax.)
As a general rule of thumb, when you try to use real world numbers and math to show that somebody else's estimate is way off, it's a good idea to use figures that don't agree with theirs quite so closely:)
assuming that the CPU would otherwise be completely idle for the entire month.
Assuming that a single person owns three desktop computers, and is a pretty typical user, and leaves them all on 24/7, I'll bet their cpus are idle over 95% of the time, unless he runs something like a fancy screensaver or Seti. So `completely idle' is pretty close to the truth. Actually, it's also possible they were all (or maybe two) turned off when not used, but now are left on to run GRID, and that'll increase the power usage greatly. And if he lives somewhere hot, the extra heat generated will require more air conditioning to keep cool. Sounds like he got off cheap at $20/month, doesn't it?:)
Smith should file a complaint and Hayes should publicly apologize.
I agree. Of course, what's more likely to happen is that Smith will sue, and the state will settle out of court. Unfortunate, but it's likely to be what happens. I'll bet 20 lawyers have already contacted Smith offering to represent him...
I hope that if Hayes ever makes a mistake
... another mistake, you mean. What he said to the media was a mistake, and I'm sure he's already regretting it. Already, he's probably getting dozens of calls and emails from Slashdotters and probably some journalists. Also, this is going to make it harder for the department to hire people -- after all, who wants to work for somebody who says this sort of thing to the media? It's entirely possible that Hays will be fired over this, just to try and minimize the damage done to the department.
His statement certainly sounded like it was meant to be made to the media, but you'd think somebody in his position would know better. There's probably a policy that prohibits him from talking to the media like this already -- and he could very well be fired for violating it. In fact, I'm amazed that news of this firing was released to the media at all... you'd think they'd want to keep it silent.
To be fair, even with the priority cranked all the way down, such a program does make other programs run slightly slower (and increases overall latency of the system.) Also, by keeping the CPU busy, the OS cannot execute the HLT (basically a nap of a few nanoseconds) operations, which allow it to save some energy and reduce the heat generated. A system running Seti uses more power than the same system being idle.
And then there's the small amount of bandwidth used...
Running programs like Seti and RC5 is *not* free. Cheap, maybe, but not completely free.
On some level, every networked computer is a server. Just because the article says it's a server, it may not be a server like you think of a server. It could very well just be the person's personal desktop box. Remember, the article was probably written by journalists, not IT people.
(Of course, it's also possible that he installed it on every computer in the building, even servers he shouldn't have access to... you just don't know, so it's hard to make judgements.)
In any event, this isn't the first time that somebody's been fired/sued for running things like Seti or RC5 on their computer, and probably won't be last.
On the other hand, I do agree that Tom Hayes comes across as a serious ass. Justified or not, he'd have been better off not making that comment to the media, and he's probably regretting it now.
I think that libel would be a better case for CNN to make;
Yes, but to get a site taken down for libel, you have to go to court and get a temporary restraining order (which might be hard to do) until the real court date -- it's not as nice, fast and easy as a DMCA takedown order.
In any event, as another poster suggested, the DMCA covers copyright, not trademarks (yet the letter mentions trademarks, you'd think the CNN lawyers would know better.) Like you, I can't see the site, but I can guess that a parody site might actually infringe on somebody's copyright, even though they didn't write the parody itself, by using logos and pictures from their site. (And even so, such use might very well constitute fair use. But I don't think the DMCA cares about fair use, all it cares about is getting a site taken down immediately, at least until somebody will stand up and take responsibility for the site.)
To be fair, Kodak probably learned about patents first hand when
Polaroid sued them (and won $900 million). Then, to add insult to injury, since Kodak couldn't make film for their instant cameras anymore, they had to spend about $500 million more dollars paying off those who had bought them.
Ouch.
Though I expect that Sun will ultimately prevail when they appeal this case. Still, the only real winners when patents get involved are the lawyers.
I bought PST, still have it, but never got too far into it. I certainly liked the story behind the game, but I got it at about the same time as I got BG2, and it was painful going back to the old graphics resolution. (BG2, on the other hand, kept me riveted for a long time.)
I'd like to see somebody re-release PST with the original content, but a new engine. Not that I'm expecting y'all to do that, just wishing out loud:)
(And no, I don't really want a NWN version. I was as amazed as anybody by NWN's graphics, but I really really hated how you didn't have a party anymore. It was you, and usually a henchman who you didn't completely control. I want a party! I want fighters, mages, a cleric or two and a thief! (Though two jedi, a soldier and a scoundrel did make a nice subsitute in a recent game...) Of course, if you can give me a party AND NWN-ish graphics, that would be nice... though I really did dislike NWN's radial button thingee.)
However, the penalties for violating FCC regulations are generally stiffer than those for violating speed limits, though the odds of actually getting hit with one are smaller. Also, most people realize that going 65 in a 55 mph zone is illegal, where many (most?) people are probably not aware that hooking up a Pringles can antenna to their Wifi AP is probably illegal too, even without an amplifier. If you're going to break the law, you should at least realize that you're breaking the law, right?
And it's especially stupid to break the law while carefully documenting things, like one might do when trying to break a world record. To use the example of traffic laws, I believe that there was a (low budget, extreme, video-only, reality) movie made a few years ago where people did all sorts of crazy things in their cars (motorcycles?), like zipping through traffic at 100+ mph (you could see the speedometer), etc. The movie contained enough information for the police to identify those responsible and arrest them, and they did just that -- for numerous serious traffic violations.
The winning team probably did so legally. But I doubt all the teams did, unless the Defcon people made sure of it (which seems unlikely.)
If this ever happens to you do not ever attempt to turn the ignition all the way off... In most cases you will lose both your power steering
Power steering -- who cares? The faster you're going, the smaller angles you're likely to turn your wheels at, so the less energy you're going to be putting into turning. You really only need power steering when you're going very slowly and trying to do something like parallel park. At highway speeds you barely notice it.
I could easily steer my Taurus station wagon at highway speeds without power steering (and $1200 later, it works again) but it required some serious effort to do low-speed things like parking.
A bigger problem is complete loss of steering. Most cars I've driven lock the steering entirely when the key is removed -- it's an anti-theft thing. And it locks *completely*.
As for the power brakes, well, if your brakes don't do anything anyways, you're not giving up a lot there.
But yes, as you've said, don't remove the key. But not quite for the reasons you've given. The biggest problem is the *complete* loss of steering.
If they followed all the ham rules, no they did not. I have no reason to believe that the winners did not follow all the ham rules, but I imagine that other teams did not.
If they did not use the ham rules, then yes they did. The rules put a maximum limit on total radiated power (1 watt) and on effective radiated power (which allowing a 6 dBi gain antenna would mean 4 watts.)
6 dBi isn't very much. These antennas probably got at least 25 dBi of gain, which would be a 316 fold increase in effective radiated power. To stay within the non-ham rules, you'd need to reduce your total radiated power by a factor of 79 to be legal with an antenna like that.
Still, it would seem that the FCC doesn't care. You can buy lots of Wifi antennas at your local Frys, many of which which have more than 6 dBi of gain, some a lot more. Obviously lots of people, even large companies, are violating the rules, but nothing seems to happen. Though I guess I'm not too surprised -- one watt of power isn't exactly a lot, and even with the highest gain antenna possible, it's still one watt of power -- just directed in a very tight beam. The FCC has bigger fish to fry -- like CBers with 20 kwatt amplifiers:)
Still, I'm always amused when I find an antenna that says `High gain omnidirectional antenna'. Who said your marketing department has to obey the laws of physics?
well these guys (if you read the article) were in fact hams.
These guys were. If you look at the pictures on the defcon website, you can even see a callsign written on the antenna (KG4KVK?) They probably did follow the rules -- writing your callsign on the antenna is does *not* satisfy the identification requirements, but merely setting your SSID to your callsign is probably good enough.
Merely having a ham license isn't enough. You need to ID yourself in an appropriate manner, stick to specific Wifi channels, not make any money off the thing, and not use encryption. These people probably did do these things.
However, lots of people hook up external antennas to their Wifi gear -- there's certainly enough websites out there that tell how to turn a Pringles can into an antenna. And almost none of them mention ham radio. I'll bet that many of the people who entered this contest were not following the ham rules...
I just think people need to know that adding special antennas to your Wifi equipment is generally illegal (in the US) unless 1) you never transmit or 2) you go under the ham radio operator rules (which requires a ham radio license, among other things.)
In the US, WiFi usage falls under
Part 15 regulations, and these regulations limit the power used for the 2.4 gHz band to
1 watt.
Which is all well and good, but there's this passage (in the `1 watt' link given above) --
if transmitting antennas of directional gain greater than 6 dBi
are used the peak output power from the intentional radiator shall be
reduced below the stated values in paragraphs (b)(1) or (b)(2) of this
section, as appropriate, by the amount in dB that the directional gain
of the antenna exceeds 6 dBi.
which basically means that if you use a directional (high-gain) antenna to transmit, you have to reduce your power by the same amount. (For receiving you can do anything you want, but these people used the same antennas for both.) Which makes this all illegal.
Now, there is a way out. The
ham rules don't have the same restrictions on antennas, and there is some overlap between the ham bands and the WiFi 2.4 gHz band, so you could go that way, but if you go under the ham rules, you have to follow all the ham rules, like those about IDing yourself, no encryption, no bad language, no monetary interest, etc.
It wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of hams in the group of people trying to get long range WiFi links going for things like this -- but I know that a lot of the people trying aren't hams, and I'll bet that even the ones that are hams aren't all following the ham rules (though they should know better.)
This link talks about wirelss ISPs co-existing with hams in the 2.4 gHz band. It's somewhat relevant, and may be interesting reading.
Actually, a computer is 100% efficient as a heater.
Yes, but I think you missed the original poster's point. That electricity was probably created by burning oil or coal over at the electrical plant, and that process is not 100% efficient. Probably closer to 20-30%, and even that ignores any energy lost in the transmission lines between here and there. It would be much more efficient to just use that oil or coal at your house to heat it rather than to convert it to electricity over there and then use that to heat your house.
So is a lightbulb as long as you don't let the light out the windows.
Well, an incadescent light is only like 10% efficient, so even letting light out the windows isn't going to affect it's efficiency as a heater much.
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Hopefully there will be at least one amateur radio satellite with the 50 they're going to launch -- this form factor would seem to be ideal.
Maybe it was just the `getting close to the end' Fantasy ...
Certainly, kids have been sitting next to their tape recorders waiting to record a particular song for as long as there have been tape recorders, and this has generally been considered legal. Of course, I can't find any citations of that before -- but it tended to predate the Internet too.
Now, things like the DMCA have changed the rules for digital media. I think it's still legal to take a cassette tape and copy somebody else's CD , tape or record, but I'm not sure if it's legal to make a copy digitally, like make an mp3 of somebody else's CD (or even tape or record) anymore. I suspect it still is, though I'm sure the RIAA wouldn't agree.
The usual reason for the special treatment for digital media is that `digital copies are just like the original' ... and I guess in some cases that's true, but in many cases it's not. An mp3 of a CD is not the same as the CD itself, though the mp3 can be copied (if done properly) through many generations with no further loss of quality, and that's what they claim to be afraid of.
Of course, the RIAA IS getting paid. If you copy a CD onto an Audio CD, the RIAA gets a cut. (It's called the `DAT tax'. Google is your friend if you've never heard of it.) I guess they're just not getting paid enough ...
Around here, our personal liberties disappearing at a high rate, thanks to the wars on drugs and now terrorism. Many of us see this as a bad thing, and a national ID card is seen as yet another symbol of this -- it may not remove or liberties by itself, but it may make future attempts to deny us liberties easier.
Einstein did a much better job applying pseudo-math to real life :
As for ZackSchil's comment, the parent of yours, I suspect that he may be right, even though he was modded down as a troll by one person (but if you think it was me, you're wrong.)
Certainly, ISPs here have been known to overreact to complaints before (and the DMCA gives them specific guidelines that they *must* follow, no matte how unfounded the complaint is) but last I checked, this wasn't specific to Texas. But perhaps these Europeans know something about Texas that I do not ...
Also note that some places may pay more for electricity than you do. Here in Austin, TX, the first 500 kW/month is relatively cheap, then the next 1000 kW/month is about twice as much, and the rest is even more. My average price per kWh works out to about $0.10, but using more power costs me more like $0.12 per kWh. (Also, the electric company shows a nice profit, which goes into the city coffers to pay for libraries and such. It's like another tax.)
As a general rule of thumb, when you try to use real world numbers and math to show that somebody else's estimate is way off, it's a good idea to use figures that don't agree with theirs quite so closely :)
Assuming that a single person owns three desktop computers, and is a pretty typical user, and leaves them all on 24/7, I'll bet their cpus are idle over 95% of the time, unless he runs something like a fancy screensaver or Seti. So `completely idle' is pretty close to the truth. Actually, it's also possible they were all (or maybe two) turned off when not used, but now are left on to run GRID, and that'll increase the power usage greatly. And if he lives somewhere hot, the extra heat generated will require more air conditioning to keep cool. Sounds like he got off cheap at $20/month, doesn't it?His statement certainly sounded like it was meant to be made to the media, but you'd think somebody in his position would know better. There's probably a policy that prohibits him from talking to the media like this already -- and he could very well be fired for violating it. In fact, I'm amazed that news of this firing was released to the media at all ... you'd think they'd want to keep it silent.
And then there's the small amount of bandwidth used ...
Running programs like Seti and RC5 is *not* free. Cheap, maybe, but not completely free.
(Of course, it's also possible that he installed it on every computer in the building, even servers he shouldn't have access to ... you just don't know, so it's hard to make judgements.)
In any event, this isn't the first time that somebody's been fired/sued for running things like Seti or RC5 on their computer, and probably won't be last.
On the other hand, I do agree that Tom Hayes comes across as a serious ass. Justified or not, he'd have been better off not making that comment to the media, and he's probably regretting it now.
Lots of education will apparantly get you in, but it looks like just having a bachelor's degree won't quite do it.
Not that I've tried or plan to try -- I'm only basing this on what's in the web site. Perhaps the web site isn't a very good indication?
In any event, as another poster suggested, the DMCA covers copyright, not trademarks (yet the letter mentions trademarks, you'd think the CNN lawyers would know better.) Like you, I can't see the site, but I can guess that a parody site might actually infringe on somebody's copyright, even though they didn't write the parody itself, by using logos and pictures from their site. (And even so, such use might very well constitute fair use. But I don't think the DMCA cares about fair use, all it cares about is getting a site taken down immediately, at least until somebody will stand up and take responsibility for the site.)
Ouch.
Though I expect that Sun will ultimately prevail when they appeal this case. Still, the only real winners when patents get involved are the lawyers.
I'd like to see somebody re-release PST with the original content, but a new engine. Not that I'm expecting y'all to do that, just wishing out loud :)
(And no, I don't really want a NWN version. I was as amazed as anybody by NWN's graphics, but I really really hated how you didn't have a party anymore. It was you, and usually a henchman who you didn't completely control. I want a party! I want fighters, mages, a cleric or two and a thief! (Though two jedi, a soldier and a scoundrel did make a nice subsitute in a recent game ...) Of course, if you can give me a party AND NWN-ish graphics, that would be nice ... though I really did dislike NWN's radial button thingee.)
However, the penalties for violating FCC regulations are generally stiffer than those for violating speed limits, though the odds of actually getting hit with one are smaller. Also, most people realize that going 65 in a 55 mph zone is illegal, where many (most?) people are probably not aware that hooking up a Pringles can antenna to their Wifi AP is probably illegal too, even without an amplifier. If you're going to break the law, you should at least realize that you're breaking the law, right?
And it's especially stupid to break the law while carefully documenting things, like one might do when trying to break a world record. To use the example of traffic laws, I believe that there was a (low budget, extreme, video-only, reality) movie made a few years ago where people did all sorts of crazy things in their cars (motorcycles?), like zipping through traffic at 100+ mph (you could see the speedometer), etc. The movie contained enough information for the police to identify those responsible and arrest them, and they did just that -- for numerous serious traffic violations.
The winning team probably did so legally. But I doubt all the teams did, unless the Defcon people made sure of it (which seems unlikely.)
I could easily steer my Taurus station wagon at highway speeds without power steering (and $1200 later, it works again) but it required some serious effort to do low-speed things like parking.
A bigger problem is complete loss of steering. Most cars I've driven lock the steering entirely when the key is removed -- it's an anti-theft thing. And it locks *completely*.
As for the power brakes, well, if your brakes don't do anything anyways, you're not giving up a lot there.
But yes, as you've said, don't remove the key. But not quite for the reasons you've given. The biggest problem is the *complete* loss of steering.
If they did not use the ham rules, then yes they did. The rules put a maximum limit on total radiated power (1 watt) and on effective radiated power (which allowing a 6 dBi gain antenna would mean 4 watts.)
6 dBi isn't very much. These antennas probably got at least 25 dBi of gain, which would be a 316 fold increase in effective radiated power. To stay within the non-ham rules, you'd need to reduce your total radiated power by a factor of 79 to be legal with an antenna like that.
Still, it would seem that the FCC doesn't care. You can buy lots of Wifi antennas at your local Frys, many of which which have more than 6 dBi of gain, some a lot more. Obviously lots of people, even large companies, are violating the rules, but nothing seems to happen. Though I guess I'm not too surprised -- one watt of power isn't exactly a lot, and even with the highest gain antenna possible, it's still one watt of power -- just directed in a very tight beam. The FCC has bigger fish to fry -- like CBers with 20 kwatt amplifiers :)
Still, I'm always amused when I find an antenna that says `High gain omnidirectional antenna'. Who said your marketing department has to obey the laws of physics?
Merely having a ham license isn't enough. You need to ID yourself in an appropriate manner, stick to specific Wifi channels, not make any money off the thing, and not use encryption. These people probably did do these things.
However, lots of people hook up external antennas to their Wifi gear -- there's certainly enough websites out there that tell how to turn a Pringles can into an antenna. And almost none of them mention ham radio. I'll bet that many of the people who entered this contest were not following the ham rules ...
I just think people need to know that adding special antennas to your Wifi equipment is generally illegal (in the US) unless 1) you never transmit or 2) you go under the ham radio operator rules (which requires a ham radio license, among other things.)
Which is all well and good, but there's this passage (in the `1 watt' link given above) --
which basically means that if you use a directional (high-gain) antenna to transmit, you have to reduce your power by the same amount. (For receiving you can do anything you want, but these people used the same antennas for both.) Which makes this all illegal.Now, there is a way out. The ham rules don't have the same restrictions on antennas, and there is some overlap between the ham bands and the WiFi 2.4 gHz band, so you could go that way, but if you go under the ham rules, you have to follow all the ham rules, like those about IDing yourself, no encryption, no bad language, no monetary interest, etc.
It wouldn't surprise me if there's a lot of hams in the group of people trying to get long range WiFi links going for things like this -- but I know that a lot of the people trying aren't hams, and I'll bet that even the ones that are hams aren't all following the ham rules (though they should know better.)
This link talks about wirelss ISPs co-existing with hams in the 2.4 gHz band. It's somewhat relevant, and may be interesting reading.