Criminals are, for the most part, not the brightest bulbs on the tree, which is mostly why they're only an inconvenience in the grand scheme of things and not a tremendous threat to civilization. It's certainly not the cops (at least not those around here) who protect us from petty crime.
I had some idiot break into my truck, in my driveway and in plain view of three different security cameras, and steal a variety of rather worthless items - prescription glasses, my old radio scanner, and (worst) my half-broken 3-year-old cell phone (cracked screen, 802.11 radio no longer worked, etc. but I was still using it). Called the cops, gave them the videos that showed the guy's face, and told them the phone was still on so I could get its location. The phone was getting good coverage (gps was reporting +/- 20ft error), and given its presence in a wooded ravine about a mile away known to be a homeless hangout, I suspected it was still with the thief. Literally all the deputy would have had to do was drive over and I'd call it. Bust the guy, haul him in. Nope. We'll take a report, call your insurance company, we don't plan to do anything. Yet later that day, on my way to replace my sunglasses, they had plenty of time to pull me over for 7 over the speed limit.
One time, many many years ago (2002ish), my ex and I rented a movie as we did rather infrequently. No problem, dropped it back in the slot a few days later, several hours before it was due. No big deal, right?
About two months later, I get a notice from some collection agency that apparently I owed Blockbuster something like a buck in late fees, but that the collection agency was tacking on something like $20 to collect on it. No prior warning, no call, no letter, no nothing. I was especially pissed because I know it wasn't late. So I took my ex-wife's card and my card, cut them into little tiny pieces, and went into the store with a copy of everything. Paid the manager a dollar, pointed out that over a single dollar they'd never see me again, tossed the tiny card remnants in the air like confetti, and exited the premises. Called the collection agency, told them I'd satisfied my debt with the asshats and if they really wanted their dollar, they could take me to court. Last I heard of them.
When I saw the "going out of business" sign go up a year or two later, I made my own addition. A laminated 8-1/2 by 11 that simply said, "Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of extortionists and thieves." I went over one night, taped it to their door, and left.
Trust me, as a small business owner myself, that 3%, plus a "pain in the ass" fee of dealing with the card processor, is built into the price for everything. There's always the chance the customer is going to reverse the charge on you as well, and often Visa/Mastercard is going to side with them even when you've got overwhelming proof that you fulfilled your obligations on the purchase. Then you're out both the product and the payment.
If somebody wants to hand me cash, I have never once even thought about turning it down. Usually it just means more money to my bottom line. Sometimes, if it's a large enough invoice, I'll even cut them a discount of about - ding, ding, ding - 3%.
I don't oppose the legislation, but it just seems like an unnecessary, "feel good" sort of lawmaking with little substantiated data to show cashless businesses were causing a significant problem. Debit cards are stupid easy to get, as are bank accounts. And if there were a significant population of people walking around with cash going "I wish somebody would take this in trade - who wants some business", some smart business is going to find a new customer base.
And that's the problem with all of these "the sky is falling and there's not enough" studies - they assume that status quo technologies and manufacturing will continue even as the economic realities around them change. Few of these materials are the *only* way to build PV or wind generators. They're just the best balance at the moment given prices and engineering goals. If you move the prices around (higher), the engineers may move on to a different way of doing things, or more mining capacity may be developed, or recycling materials that previously were junked may become feasible, etc.
I'm right there with you - part of the responsibility of living in a free democratic society is educating yourself and trying to make rational decisions and choices.
Unfortunately, humanity regularly demonstrates it's too stupid for this responsibility. Facebook is both part of the problem, as there's no way to downvote stupid and it contributes to the "what should I be enraged at today without thinking about it" culture, and it's also just a place that demonstrates this is the basic nature of humanity, whether on FB or not.
I choose not to participate in social media hysteria and stupidity, because I feel it actively makes me dumber.
Yup, me too. Just finished responding to quite a bit of today's email using it. I've tried migrating to something else, but it just doesn't work the way I want it to. Outlook is passable, except for it totally fails at things like breaking up quotes to inline responses, and there's no chance in hell of there ever being a native Linux client (and Win10 makes me want to totally abandon Windows more by the day - Eudora is one of the things holding me here). Thunderbird is likewise okayish, but sometimes it just hoarks on itself in unexplained ways, and again the editing/composing engine leaves something to be desired. In the past two weeks I've finally relented and started looking at how to migrate to something else and make it so I don't totally hate it. This might cause me to retrench until I figure out if there's a way to modernize Eudora.
Seriously, MDI interfaces for having multiple mail folders open at once is awesome. Screw you UI people who don't like it.
Okay, so we have the source. Who's with me to modernize this sucker and finally build TotallyNotCalledEudora 9? (since Penelope already made 8 a horrific, traumatic experience)
Can confirm it's definitely these little guys - they're all over my house the last couple days. It's also going to be a near perfect weekend followed by a very hard freeze and snow on Monday, so there may be some instinctual drive pushing them south along the Front Range.
The victim is a victim because he's an idiot. Should VSC behave better? Probably, don't know, haven't tried what he did to see if it really does that. Should we really pity in any way, shape, or form some guy with only a single copy of three months worth of work? That just shows a naive, idiotic trust that the world is a big, safe sandbox in which to play and not be accountable for protecting yourself. Which, of course, is completely out of touch with reality.
Have I nuked my changes before on accident by doing the wrong thing? Yeah, more than I'd like to admit. You know who I blame? The meatbag between the chair and the keyboard.
Couldn't agree more, except I'd say don't get married ever. I married someone that I'd literally grown up with and we'd been dating for 8+ years. If ever I thought I knew and could trust someone it was her. Plus, she was a fellow engineer and made roughly the same, if not a bit more.
She had a midlife crises, flipped out and we split. Even with a relatively amicable split, I still had to write her the $100k check on my thirtieth birthday because I kept the house. Nevermind it was largely my reserves that paid for it in the first place...
That said, I made a couple very cool career and investment moves in my thirties and have recovered nicely. I'm now in my forties, financially comfy and on track to retire before I hit fifty. I have a girlfriend who has her own life, place, and income, and we're quite happy not placing each other's financial future at risk.
Just don't get married. Ever. It's a racket and a scam and statistically, you're not going to come out a winner.
Nah, because through the power of bigger engineering, we can put the bastard back. The Miss would have jumped over to the Atchafalaya channel years ago if it wasn't for engineering intervention.
Couldn't agree more that they're massively overvalued. Ford sold 2.6M cars/trucks in the US alone, took in $151B overall, and made profits of $10.4B in FY 2016.
Tesla? $7B in total revenue with a loss of $746M for the FY, and only sold 76k vehicles total. Yeah, I see why they're worth more.
I love their technology and really hope that their cars are a big part of the future, but their market cap is driven by nothing but hype and hope.
Yeah, Iowa's #43 in per capita Federal spending for 2013 based on the 2014 Pew Trust spending report, getting roughly $25B. (Source: Wikipedia...) Meanwhile, we were #37 on per capital Federal tax contributions for 2015 (roughly $24B). Sorry, I can't quickly find numbers from the same exact year, but 2013 vs. 2015 wasn't that much different. Really suckin' at the ol' government teat there, eh?
We'd do just fine without the coastal states, but we have no oil, and they have inadequate agriculture to feed their populations. It makes a decent trade.
Hell, sometimes not even months. Bought a new truck in Denver late July and had a crack across the windshield from a rock before I even got it home. Less than 100 miles on it and a broken windshield already. And of course, because it's a 2017 and a new body style, you can only get the glass from the manufacturer at a hefty price ($900, all said and done). I would happily pay double for a windshield that wouldn't break every time a rock hit it, particularly since CDOT thinks spreading small sharp rocks all over the road is an acceptable substitute for adequate plowing and/or salt.
Probably not much would happen. Many of them just put +5V on the power line and leave the data lines floating or tie them together. Sometimes they have various resistor networks to trigger higher charge rates. Depends on the size of the resistors, but my bet is even throwing 100-200V at them isn't going to do much given how little energy a few ceramic caps can hold. You'll exceed the power rating for a bit, and that will quickly drop off as the caps discharge.
The bigger problem will be USB C chargers and things like Qualcomm Quickcharge, which actually use digital communication on the lines to trigger various non-5V voltages and higher currents. Because they use actual signaling, they're much more prone to damage.
As the parent said, the sort of antisocial taintsuckers that would do this are why we can't live in a decent society.
My phone has intrinsic value as a small computer. My credit card does not - it's just magic numbers on a two cent piece of plastic. If I lose the card, I call the company and get them to issue me a new one essentially for free. If I lose my phone, I get to go plunk down $700 on a new one.
I'd rather carry cheap, disposable things that don't cost me a huge amount if I lose. Plus, again, I don't want my ID or my payment methods to run out of battery.
I fail to understand why I'd want to pay with my phone. A) Cash never runs out of battery, and the merchant can always verify it's valid without a network connection B) Credit cards never run out of battery, and there's a backup process for when the terminal can't call home to momma (although imprint machines scare anybody under 30 if they have to use them...) C) Mobile OSs are subject to security holes that are being actively pursued D) I have to carry a wallet anyway. Drivers license, health insurance cards, *cash*, etc. So what does it gain me?
Seriously, this is the standard "wouldn't it be cool if your smartphone could..." sort of thinking, without pondering if it's really better to do those things with a smartphone.
Personally, you almost couldn't pay me enough to live anywhere in the Bay Area. I mean sure, there's some number at which I could put up with it for a couple years and then retire elsewhere, but it's crowded, expensive, and I find generally unpleasant. I dread any time I have to go work in SFO, SJC, or OAK. About the only place I'd want to live in CA is out along the eastern edge - think Inyo County - or maybe anywhere north of Redding (east or west).
Then again, I generally loathe humanity other than a small group that I call friends. I like my space - open roads, clear skies, high speed limits, and enough property that I can keep my neighbors at least a quarter mile in any direction.
At the end of the day - and it has been this way since two decades ago when I was fresh out of college - the most important thing to me is living where I want. I'm flexible enough that I can find work that meets my salary needs. I've never understood the appeal of the Bay Area, and I probably never will.
But hey, if folks all want to be there, it keeps them from moving closer to me.
Likewise - I've seen this in a number of companies, regardless of if they know where you're going or not. If you have access to what they consider trade secret IP (despite either having developed it or worked on it for years), I've seen friends get shown the door within minutes of giving notice. However, those companies have always paid them for those two weeks, they just didn't want them to have access any longer.
I have to agree - if you work for a big company and don't have anything lined up, never quit. If you just do your job half-assed and play along with them having performance reviews, putting you on an improvement plan, making marginal improvements in some areas and failing worse in others, wash-rinse-repeat, you can drag on employment for years by surfing the process.
Then again, I echo the words of others - don't screw over coworkers and friends you respect, or a company that's always treated you with respect. Wheaton's Law absolutely applies at the office.
My coworkers would know, because I'd give them two weeks notice or more so they wouldn't feel screwed over and so they could make an orderly transition. My management may not be privy to such information depending on how they'd been treating me lately. That said, I have no intention of leaving my current position for the foreseeable future.
[quote]to share sensitive information over public Wi-Fi connections, which are notoriously insecure[/quote]
I've never understood this whole idea - anything sensitive should be going over an encrypted connection anyway. Who cares if some idiot sitting next to me in the coffee shop can sniff it? He can't make heads or tails of it anyway. In the case of a MITM attack set up in the wireless gateway, the certificate validation / host key / other host validation protocols should fail. Adding a VPN connection adds layers of defence, but something that's highly unnecessary for most individuals and data.
Otherwise, I'm probably just browsing sites that don't require logins or any other information from me - in which case, again, there's nothing secret or proprietary there and I don't care if I get sniffed.
I still *carry* paper maps on the road with me, but I very rarely ever use the darn things anymore. They're heavy, bulky, and having a blinking GPS dot that says "your dumb ass is right here" is rather handy sometimes.
I have my tablet loaded with MAPS.ME, which is quite possibly the most awesome mobile application ever. It allows you to download all the datasets for anywhere you'll be (which are based off the OpenStreetmap dataset), such that you have very finely detailed maps at any zoom level with absolute certainty you aren't dependent upon a data connection. Unless you're carrying detailed local maps as well as large scale stuff, my electronics have you beat by a mile on #2.
#1 has never been a problem for me. #3, yeah, I'll give you that one, but on a 10" tablet, it's not bad.
Actually, I'd give him a choice - ten identical doors. He gets to use an unmodified ADE651 to pick which one to open. Nine out of ten have real (big) bombs mounted under the door frame. The remaining one has nothing. We give him an option at sentencing - he can either do life in prison, or pick a door and possibly go free. If his device works, that shouldn't be an issue at all.
Wish I had mod points, I'd bump you up. Nobody actually thought the FCC was going to make hacking your router illegal. It's outside their jurisdiction anyway as long as it doesn't change the electromagnetic emissions. The reality is that the easiest way for a manufacturer to assure compliance is to sign the firmware and lock the hardware to that signature, effectively preventing any firmware modification. If anybody thinks manufacturers are going to take the intentional hard road in the design just so a tiny subset of their customers can go in and modify things, you're nuts. Effectively the FCC is still boning us all.
Slashdot Mirror
Criminals are, for the most part, not the brightest bulbs on the tree, which is mostly why they're only an inconvenience in the grand scheme of things and not a tremendous threat to civilization. It's certainly not the cops (at least not those around here) who protect us from petty crime.
I had some idiot break into my truck, in my driveway and in plain view of three different security cameras, and steal a variety of rather worthless items - prescription glasses, my old radio scanner, and (worst) my half-broken 3-year-old cell phone (cracked screen, 802.11 radio no longer worked, etc. but I was still using it). Called the cops, gave them the videos that showed the guy's face, and told them the phone was still on so I could get its location. The phone was getting good coverage (gps was reporting +/- 20ft error), and given its presence in a wooded ravine about a mile away known to be a homeless hangout, I suspected it was still with the thief. Literally all the deputy would have had to do was drive over and I'd call it. Bust the guy, haul him in. Nope. We'll take a report, call your insurance company, we don't plan to do anything. Yet later that day, on my way to replace my sunglasses, they had plenty of time to pull me over for 7 over the speed limit.
One time, many many years ago (2002ish), my ex and I rented a movie as we did rather infrequently. No problem, dropped it back in the slot a few days later, several hours before it was due. No big deal, right?
About two months later, I get a notice from some collection agency that apparently I owed Blockbuster something like a buck in late fees, but that the collection agency was tacking on something like $20 to collect on it. No prior warning, no call, no letter, no nothing. I was especially pissed because I know it wasn't late. So I took my ex-wife's card and my card, cut them into little tiny pieces, and went into the store with a copy of everything. Paid the manager a dollar, pointed out that over a single dollar they'd never see me again, tossed the tiny card remnants in the air like confetti, and exited the premises. Called the collection agency, told them I'd satisfied my debt with the asshats and if they really wanted their dollar, they could take me to court. Last I heard of them.
When I saw the "going out of business" sign go up a year or two later, I made my own addition. A laminated 8-1/2 by 11 that simply said, "Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of extortionists and thieves." I went over one night, taped it to their door, and left.
Trust me, as a small business owner myself, that 3%, plus a "pain in the ass" fee of dealing with the card processor, is built into the price for everything. There's always the chance the customer is going to reverse the charge on you as well, and often Visa/Mastercard is going to side with them even when you've got overwhelming proof that you fulfilled your obligations on the purchase. Then you're out both the product and the payment.
If somebody wants to hand me cash, I have never once even thought about turning it down. Usually it just means more money to my bottom line. Sometimes, if it's a large enough invoice, I'll even cut them a discount of about - ding, ding, ding - 3%.
I don't oppose the legislation, but it just seems like an unnecessary, "feel good" sort of lawmaking with little substantiated data to show cashless businesses were causing a significant problem. Debit cards are stupid easy to get, as are bank accounts. And if there were a significant population of people walking around with cash going "I wish somebody would take this in trade - who wants some business", some smart business is going to find a new customer base.
And that's the problem with all of these "the sky is falling and there's not enough" studies - they assume that status quo technologies and manufacturing will continue even as the economic realities around them change. Few of these materials are the *only* way to build PV or wind generators. They're just the best balance at the moment given prices and engineering goals. If you move the prices around (higher), the engineers may move on to a different way of doing things, or more mining capacity may be developed, or recycling materials that previously were junked may become feasible, etc.
Worried? Not at all. We'll figure this out.
I'm right there with you - part of the responsibility of living in a free democratic society is educating yourself and trying to make rational decisions and choices.
Unfortunately, humanity regularly demonstrates it's too stupid for this responsibility. Facebook is both part of the problem, as there's no way to downvote stupid and it contributes to the "what should I be enraged at today without thinking about it" culture, and it's also just a place that demonstrates this is the basic nature of humanity, whether on FB or not.
I choose not to participate in social media hysteria and stupidity, because I feel it actively makes me dumber.
Yup, me too. Just finished responding to quite a bit of today's email using it. I've tried migrating to something else, but it just doesn't work the way I want it to. Outlook is passable, except for it totally fails at things like breaking up quotes to inline responses, and there's no chance in hell of there ever being a native Linux client (and Win10 makes me want to totally abandon Windows more by the day - Eudora is one of the things holding me here). Thunderbird is likewise okayish, but sometimes it just hoarks on itself in unexplained ways, and again the editing/composing engine leaves something to be desired. In the past two weeks I've finally relented and started looking at how to migrate to something else and make it so I don't totally hate it. This might cause me to retrench until I figure out if there's a way to modernize Eudora.
Seriously, MDI interfaces for having multiple mail folders open at once is awesome. Screw you UI people who don't like it.
Okay, so we have the source. Who's with me to modernize this sucker and finally build TotallyNotCalledEudora 9? (since Penelope already made 8 a horrific, traumatic experience)
Can confirm it's definitely these little guys - they're all over my house the last couple days. It's also going to be a near perfect weekend followed by a very hard freeze and snow on Monday, so there may be some instinctual drive pushing them south along the Front Range.
The victim is a victim because he's an idiot. Should VSC behave better? Probably, don't know, haven't tried what he did to see if it really does that. Should we really pity in any way, shape, or form some guy with only a single copy of three months worth of work? That just shows a naive, idiotic trust that the world is a big, safe sandbox in which to play and not be accountable for protecting yourself. Which, of course, is completely out of touch with reality.
Have I nuked my changes before on accident by doing the wrong thing? Yeah, more than I'd like to admit. You know who I blame? The meatbag between the chair and the keyboard.
Couldn't agree more, except I'd say don't get married ever. I married someone that I'd literally grown up with and we'd been dating for 8+ years. If ever I thought I knew and could trust someone it was her. Plus, she was a fellow engineer and made roughly the same, if not a bit more.
She had a midlife crises, flipped out and we split. Even with a relatively amicable split, I still had to write her the $100k check on my thirtieth birthday because I kept the house. Nevermind it was largely my reserves that paid for it in the first place...
That said, I made a couple very cool career and investment moves in my thirties and have recovered nicely. I'm now in my forties, financially comfy and on track to retire before I hit fifty. I have a girlfriend who has her own life, place, and income, and we're quite happy not placing each other's financial future at risk.
Just don't get married. Ever. It's a racket and a scam and statistically, you're not going to come out a winner.
Nah, because through the power of bigger engineering, we can put the bastard back. The Miss would have jumped over to the Atchafalaya channel years ago if it wasn't for engineering intervention.
Couldn't agree more that they're massively overvalued. Ford sold 2.6M cars/trucks in the US alone, took in $151B overall, and made profits of $10.4B in FY 2016.
Tesla? $7B in total revenue with a loss of $746M for the FY, and only sold 76k vehicles total. Yeah, I see why they're worth more.
I love their technology and really hope that their cars are a big part of the future, but their market cap is driven by nothing but hype and hope.
Yeah, Iowa's #43 in per capita Federal spending for 2013 based on the 2014 Pew Trust spending report, getting roughly $25B. (Source: Wikipedia...) Meanwhile, we were #37 on per capital Federal tax contributions for 2015 (roughly $24B). Sorry, I can't quickly find numbers from the same exact year, but 2013 vs. 2015 wasn't that much different. Really suckin' at the ol' government teat there, eh?
We'd do just fine without the coastal states, but we have no oil, and they have inadequate agriculture to feed their populations. It makes a decent trade.
Plus, we're just plain smarter than you coastals:
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
I miss home. One of these days I'll give corporate America the finger and move back to the farm.
Hell, sometimes not even months. Bought a new truck in Denver late July and had a crack across the windshield from a rock before I even got it home. Less than 100 miles on it and a broken windshield already. And of course, because it's a 2017 and a new body style, you can only get the glass from the manufacturer at a hefty price ($900, all said and done). I would happily pay double for a windshield that wouldn't break every time a rock hit it, particularly since CDOT thinks spreading small sharp rocks all over the road is an acceptable substitute for adequate plowing and/or salt.
Probably not much would happen. Many of them just put +5V on the power line and leave the data lines floating or tie them together. Sometimes they have various resistor networks to trigger higher charge rates. Depends on the size of the resistors, but my bet is even throwing 100-200V at them isn't going to do much given how little energy a few ceramic caps can hold. You'll exceed the power rating for a bit, and that will quickly drop off as the caps discharge.
The bigger problem will be USB C chargers and things like Qualcomm Quickcharge, which actually use digital communication on the lines to trigger various non-5V voltages and higher currents. Because they use actual signaling, they're much more prone to damage.
As the parent said, the sort of antisocial taintsuckers that would do this are why we can't live in a decent society.
I applaud your support of my utopian "pants free workplace".
My phone has intrinsic value as a small computer. My credit card does not - it's just magic numbers on a two cent piece of plastic. If I lose the card, I call the company and get them to issue me a new one essentially for free. If I lose my phone, I get to go plunk down $700 on a new one.
I'd rather carry cheap, disposable things that don't cost me a huge amount if I lose. Plus, again, I don't want my ID or my payment methods to run out of battery.
I fail to understand why I'd want to pay with my phone.
A) Cash never runs out of battery, and the merchant can always verify it's valid without a network connection
B) Credit cards never run out of battery, and there's a backup process for when the terminal can't call home to momma (although imprint machines scare anybody under 30 if they have to use them...)
C) Mobile OSs are subject to security holes that are being actively pursued
D) I have to carry a wallet anyway. Drivers license, health insurance cards, *cash*, etc. So what does it gain me?
Seriously, this is the standard "wouldn't it be cool if your smartphone could..." sort of thinking, without pondering if it's really better to do those things with a smartphone.
You say "democrat sex fiend" like it's a bad thing, troll... :)
Personally, you almost couldn't pay me enough to live anywhere in the Bay Area. I mean sure, there's some number at which I could put up with it for a couple years and then retire elsewhere, but it's crowded, expensive, and I find generally unpleasant. I dread any time I have to go work in SFO, SJC, or OAK. About the only place I'd want to live in CA is out along the eastern edge - think Inyo County - or maybe anywhere north of Redding (east or west).
Then again, I generally loathe humanity other than a small group that I call friends. I like my space - open roads, clear skies, high speed limits, and enough property that I can keep my neighbors at least a quarter mile in any direction.
At the end of the day - and it has been this way since two decades ago when I was fresh out of college - the most important thing to me is living where I want. I'm flexible enough that I can find work that meets my salary needs. I've never understood the appeal of the Bay Area, and I probably never will.
But hey, if folks all want to be there, it keeps them from moving closer to me.
Likewise - I've seen this in a number of companies, regardless of if they know where you're going or not. If you have access to what they consider trade secret IP (despite either having developed it or worked on it for years), I've seen friends get shown the door within minutes of giving notice. However, those companies have always paid them for those two weeks, they just didn't want them to have access any longer.
I have to agree - if you work for a big company and don't have anything lined up, never quit. If you just do your job half-assed and play along with them having performance reviews, putting you on an improvement plan, making marginal improvements in some areas and failing worse in others, wash-rinse-repeat, you can drag on employment for years by surfing the process.
Then again, I echo the words of others - don't screw over coworkers and friends you respect, or a company that's always treated you with respect. Wheaton's Law absolutely applies at the office.
My coworkers would know, because I'd give them two weeks notice or more so they wouldn't feel screwed over and so they could make an orderly transition. My management may not be privy to such information depending on how they'd been treating me lately. That said, I have no intention of leaving my current position for the foreseeable future.
[quote]to share sensitive information over public Wi-Fi connections, which are notoriously insecure[/quote]
I've never understood this whole idea - anything sensitive should be going over an encrypted connection anyway. Who cares if some idiot sitting next to me in the coffee shop can sniff it? He can't make heads or tails of it anyway. In the case of a MITM attack set up in the wireless gateway, the certificate validation / host key / other host validation protocols should fail. Adding a VPN connection adds layers of defence, but something that's highly unnecessary for most individuals and data.
Otherwise, I'm probably just browsing sites that don't require logins or any other information from me - in which case, again, there's nothing secret or proprietary there and I don't care if I get sniffed.
I still *carry* paper maps on the road with me, but I very rarely ever use the darn things anymore. They're heavy, bulky, and having a blinking GPS dot that says "your dumb ass is right here" is rather handy sometimes.
I have my tablet loaded with MAPS.ME, which is quite possibly the most awesome mobile application ever. It allows you to download all the datasets for anywhere you'll be (which are based off the OpenStreetmap dataset), such that you have very finely detailed maps at any zoom level with absolute certainty you aren't dependent upon a data connection. Unless you're carrying detailed local maps as well as large scale stuff, my electronics have you beat by a mile on #2.
#1 has never been a problem for me. #3, yeah, I'll give you that one, but on a 10" tablet, it's not bad.
Actually, I'd give him a choice - ten identical doors. He gets to use an unmodified ADE651 to pick which one to open. Nine out of ten have real (big) bombs mounted under the door frame. The remaining one has nothing. We give him an option at sentencing - he can either do life in prison, or pick a door and possibly go free. If his device works, that shouldn't be an issue at all.
Should make great pay-per-view.
Wish I had mod points, I'd bump you up. Nobody actually thought the FCC was going to make hacking your router illegal. It's outside their jurisdiction anyway as long as it doesn't change the electromagnetic emissions. The reality is that the easiest way for a manufacturer to assure compliance is to sign the firmware and lock the hardware to that signature, effectively preventing any firmware modification. If anybody thinks manufacturers are going to take the intentional hard road in the design just so a tiny subset of their customers can go in and modify things, you're nuts. Effectively the FCC is still boning us all.