Well, honestly, if Neopets were more concerned about being a decent corporate citizen instead of making sucking kids into their toys, I'd bet they would have come up with other "games" that weren't so overt.
The problem with censorware is that most parents don't use that, either.
The parents that you need to worry about are the ones that allow totally unfettered access to everything.
The real issue here is that you're (from the sounds of it) one of those 1 in 5 parents that actually takes an active roll in educating their children.
Sadly, too many parents are too busy with their own lives to spend the appropriate amount of time necessary to teach their children. They expect the schools to do it all for them.
Sadly, because things have come to parents using TV, video games or the internet to babysit their children, this is going to come up more and more.
Your children are very lucky. Most will never receive the kind of parenting you purport to provide.
Funny, I use tons of third-party apps that make my iPod more usable.
The new iPod is going to be roughly the same size, and is going to have a full-color display.
The point is: with a little better design and prioritizing of features, this PDA could have been a potential windows mobile killer.
I've owned:
Palm IIIc
Handspring Visor
Apple Newton
One of the first HP Jornadas
I'm currently using an Audiovox PPC4100 smartphone.
I've also used a friend's Zaurus many times... works great for what it did, but hopelessly out of date today.
I'd say I'm educated enough to know what I'm talking about. If you think Mobile 2003 is bloated, you're just uneducated.
I have some reservations about the FCC regulating something that they have not regulated much in the past. As far as I know, the power company has not needed a license to broadcast their 60 hz signal before...
BPL won't broadcast at 60Hz... there's tons of unused bandwidth in overhead transmission lines.
BPL will operate at higher freqs, typically the HF portion of the spectrum... and that'll interfere with Amateur Radio.
If they were transmitting BPL at 60 Hz, they wouldn't have enough bandwidth for it to be useable at all! Hell, a TV channel uses a whopping 6000 Hz itself!
You're exactly right: If a licensed user of a portion of the spectrum is using his portion of the spectrum legally, then there is NOTHING the BPL guys can do to stop him from continuing to use it. Hence, it's going to be really easy for a vindictive ham to walk all over the signals BPL use.
That being said, who would really be surprised if the FCC decided to amend the laws to fuck over hams?
I'm a rarity among ham radio operators these days:
I shower often, brush my teeth, wear deodorant and don't live at home. Not to mention I'm under 30. (rimshot)
Seriously, folks: unless there is some way that the FCC and the BPL operators can guarantee with 100% success that interference won't occur, this is going to really wreak havoc on the hobby.
During the "great blackout", hams were actually really important in helping emergency services communicate after backup generators powering the Public Safety radio systems died. Introduce a technology that prevents hams from persuing their hobby recreationally, and eventually, they'll all go away.
Ergo, when the lights go out again, there's hardly anyone around to help.
But let's look at something else: how vindictive and brazen some of these older "1337" hams are.
You start to fuck with their only hobby, and I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts that they'll fight back.
Part of the thing with BPL is that while it interferes with Amateur Radio frequencies, Amateur Radio frequencies can interfere with them in turn.
It's going to be very hard (if impossible) to stop some stinky, angry ham operator from pulling up next to some power lines in his tricked out hamsexy truck and pump a couple hundred Watts of RF into the BPL lines.
A couple months of continual service outages would drive customers away.
Beware the wrath of a stinky ham.
Having just moved to the USA from Canada, I can tell you that many of those "sweet"-type alcoholic drinks are already malt based... not vodka, gin, etc based...
Amazing what artificial flavors can accomplish. Although, yes, it's nice to see a big player pushing new product...
Why do all the AC's come out claiming that when someone doesn't have a complete grasp on the topic (I'm a dba, not an engineer; I dabble in Amateur Radio), they're immediately trolling or karma-whoring?
When I posted this, I wasn't thinking about shielding at all; stupid me.
Call me a karma-whore if you want; not like I really care.
The researchers clearly state that while right now these things are working at ~23 mhz, the technology supports (in the future) operation well into the mega and gigahertz bands.
And while something operating at a femtowatt @ 23mhz really isn't an issue, due to the incredible length of a wave in that portion of the spectrum (from memory, a 23mhz wavelength is something like the length of a football/soccer stadium), when you get into gigahertz stuff, low power in close range is possibly interfering...
It seems, to me anyways, that these devices would be aligned/manufactured/constructed in some sort of grid/lattice layout that could possibly create interference by amplification of wavelengths... if these devices are spaced an equal number of wavelengths apart, or some sort of fraction thereof, you'll get frequency amplification... conversely, you could create a subtraction effect by placing these things on opposite waves of the wavelength
Sure, I know enough to get that... but I'm interested in the possible effect of a few million of them working in tandem...
They claim a few "femtowatts" of power... throw a few million of them together, and all of a sudden you've got a resonating device easily in the hundreds of milliwatts... Enough to interfere with the gigahertz cell phone bands.
The tiny dimensions of the device allowed it to vibrate quickly, achieving a millions-of-cycles-per-second frequency of 23.57 megahertz. This speed reflects the rate at which the device could "read" stored information. As a comparison, the hard drives in current laptops can read at a speed of a few hundred kilohertz (thousands of cycles per second) in actual operation. The researchers speculate that even smaller beams could be produced and that such devices could achieve true read speeds in the gigahertz range -- billions of cycles per second.
I'm no electronics whiz, but if we can start making millions upon millions of devices that can resonate at higher frequencies, what possible interference will this cause with radio-communications?
Is there an electronics nerd/engineer on here that can clarify that for me?
What is this guy going to do when something as simple as an access point stops working. Who is going to be able to physically go replace it[?]
Uhhh... I'd say that he'll drive to one of the literally hundreds of PC stores that dot the Toronto landscape, buy a new AP, drive home, climb the ladder into his attic and replace said AP... and that's if he doesn't keep a cold spare in the house for just an eventuality.
I'd say that his response time would own the local phone/cable companies... (and I know, I used to live in Toronto)
Slashdot Mirror
I need to take lunch. My brain just isn't functioning. :/
The problem with censorware is that most parents don't use that, either.
The parents that you need to worry about are the ones that allow totally unfettered access to everything.
Dammit. I meant 'role', not 'roll'. What's bread got ta do, got ta do with it?
Sadly, too many parents are too busy with their own lives to spend the appropriate amount of time necessary to teach their children. They expect the schools to do it all for them.
Sadly, because things have come to parents using TV, video games or the internet to babysit their children, this is going to come up more and more.
Your children are very lucky. Most will never receive the kind of parenting you purport to provide.
But! When the lights go out 15 years from now, and all the hams have given up their hobby, who's left? No one.
I get out lots, thanks. I even have an attractive wife that *gasp* puts out now and then. I'd bet that you can't say the same.
Go troll somewhere else.
The new iPod is going to be roughly the same size, and is going to have a full-color display.
The point is: with a little better design and prioritizing of features, this PDA could have been a potential windows mobile killer.
Instead, they disappointed.
There's no reason Sharp couldn't have made a better device that supported wi-fi, bluetooth, etc., in a similarly-sized package.
I've owned:
Palm IIIc
Handspring Visor
Apple Newton
One of the first HP Jornadas
I'm currently using an Audiovox PPC4100 smartphone.
I've also used a friend's Zaurus many times... works great for what it did, but hopelessly out of date today.
I'd say I'm educated enough to know what I'm talking about. If you think Mobile 2003 is bloated, you're just uneducated.
Continual, repetitive service outages for BPL users could easily spell the death of BPL.
"...416MHz Intel XScale PXA270 processor backed by 64MB of SDRAM and 16MB of Flash ROM."
64 ram and 16 rom??? No Wi-fi or Bluetooth built in? How many of us actually use infrared on a regular basis?
Sorry, Sharp; you're doing all of us a disservice by not promoting Linux as a device that can compete with comparable Windows Mobile-based devices.
As in home with my parents. Surely you're not that dumb to have missed the joke.
BPL won't broadcast at 60Hz... there's tons of unused bandwidth in overhead transmission lines.
BPL will operate at higher freqs, typically the HF portion of the spectrum... and that'll interfere with Amateur Radio.
If they were transmitting BPL at 60 Hz, they wouldn't have enough bandwidth for it to be useable at all! Hell, a TV channel uses a whopping 6000 Hz itself!
I believe CHP still uses lowband for communications. You can still pick them up on the east coast on nights when skip is good.
That being said, who would really be surprised if the FCC decided to amend the laws to fuck over hams?
I shower often, brush my teeth, wear deodorant and don't live at home. Not to mention I'm under 30. (rimshot)
Seriously, folks: unless there is some way that the FCC and the BPL operators can guarantee with 100% success that interference won't occur, this is going to really wreak havoc on the hobby.
During the "great blackout", hams were actually really important in helping emergency services communicate after backup generators powering the Public Safety radio systems died. Introduce a technology that prevents hams from persuing their hobby recreationally, and eventually, they'll all go away.
Ergo, when the lights go out again, there's hardly anyone around to help.
But let's look at something else: how vindictive and brazen some of these older "1337" hams are.
You start to fuck with their only hobby, and I'll bet you dollars-to-donuts that they'll fight back.
Part of the thing with BPL is that while it interferes with Amateur Radio frequencies, Amateur Radio frequencies can interfere with them in turn.
It's going to be very hard (if impossible) to stop some stinky, angry ham operator from pulling up next to some power lines in his tricked out hamsexy truck and pump a couple hundred Watts of RF into the BPL lines.
A couple months of continual service outages would drive customers away.
Beware the wrath of a stinky ham.
Amazing what artificial flavors can accomplish.
Although, yes, it's nice to see a big player pushing new product...
Personally, I'll stick with my scotch.
When I posted this, I wasn't thinking about shielding at all; stupid me.
Call me a karma-whore if you want; not like I really care.
The researchers clearly state that while right now these things are working at ~23 mhz, the technology supports (in the future) operation well into the mega and gigahertz bands. And while something operating at a femtowatt @ 23mhz really isn't an issue, due to the incredible length of a wave in that portion of the spectrum (from memory, a 23mhz wavelength is something like the length of a football/soccer stadium), when you get into gigahertz stuff, low power in close range is possibly interfering...
It seems, to me anyways, that these devices would be aligned/manufactured/constructed in some sort of grid/lattice layout that could possibly create interference by amplification of wavelengths... if these devices are spaced an equal number of wavelengths apart, or some sort of fraction thereof, you'll get frequency amplification... conversely, you could create a subtraction effect by placing these things on opposite waves of the wavelength
(Excuse my poor explanation, IANAE)
Sure, I know enough to get that... but I'm interested in the possible effect of a few million of them working in tandem...
They claim a few "femtowatts" of power... throw a few million of them together, and all of a sudden you've got a resonating device easily in the hundreds of milliwatts... Enough to interfere with the gigahertz cell phone bands.
The tiny dimensions of the device allowed it to vibrate quickly, achieving a millions-of-cycles-per-second frequency of 23.57 megahertz. This speed reflects the rate at which the device could "read" stored information. As a comparison, the hard drives in current laptops can read at a speed of a few hundred kilohertz (thousands of cycles per second) in actual operation. The researchers speculate that even smaller beams could be produced and that such devices could achieve true read speeds in the gigahertz range -- billions of cycles per second.
I'm no electronics whiz, but if we can start making millions upon millions of devices that can resonate at higher frequencies, what possible interference will this cause with radio-communications?
Is there an electronics nerd/engineer on here that can clarify that for me?
Uhhh... I'd say that he'll drive to one of the literally hundreds of PC stores that dot the Toronto landscape, buy a new AP, drive home, climb the ladder into his attic and replace said AP... and that's if he doesn't keep a cold spare in the house for just an eventuality.
I'd say that his response time would own the local phone/cable companies... (and I know, I used to live in Toronto)