It's really not a problem unless you're in a severely congested area. There are some hotspots that get really crowded, but for the most part people know to just keep moving, or if you want to stop, get out of the main path of pedestrian traffic.
The problem is when I just want to get where I'm going, and there's a herd of 20 tourists from the same group blocking the entire sidewalk. I don't have a problem with herds of tourists, NY is a nice city to visit and people are very welcoming of visitors, but just have some courtesy and get out of the way. I bet these are the same people that stay in the left lane when driving on highways and don't get over to let faster traffic pass.
I'm curious to know what it's like to drive an all-electric vehicle. I really like the concept and hope it becomes real in my lifetime. A former coworker is converting an Opel GT (69?) into an EV and I can't wait to see it when he's done!
I do like the idea of having a backup gasoline engine, like in the Volt (allowing you to own a car that is capable of going beyond 300 miles or whatever the all-electric range is). It would also be nice if Toyota/Ford/Honda offered plug-in capabilities with their hybrids and allowed them to go all-electric for short ranges.
I take it you haven't flown on an American carrier recently. Ok, they charge for beer, but most airlines have modern entertainment systems for their international flights. Continental has a nifty on-demand video system from Panasonic, and yes it DOES run Linux...
Then let those fleet managers choose to buy/integrate/use those systems. Such tracking systems already exist from other providers and can be integrated with existing vehicles (and they're not tied to one specific vehicle manufacturer). Let the other millions of regular owners decide whether they want the technology or not.
On the other hand, most typical consumers don't think like your typical slashdotter and will blindly buy whatever is available to them and not care about privacy or anything else. Only recently did I realize that I'm not a typical consumer.
Echoing the same thing that's been repeated all over the place here - I don't have anything to hide, but I don't like the idea of my vehicle being accessible remotely; with some unknown third party being able to track by GPS, and remotely access my door locks, diagnostics system, etc. I make the choice to NOT buy any vehicle equipped with a system like OnStar.
The problem is that there is absolutely no NEED for the speedo to be "writable" over a diagnostics cable, or anything else for that matter.
I agree with most of what you said, except for the speedometer part. Often times the speedometer is linked to the number of rotations of the wheels. When people change tire sizes or gear ratios (not very common, but it does happen) it's good to have the ability to adjust the speedometer accordingly. If not, you not only get an inaccurate speed indication but an inaccurate odometer reading.
I don't think it should be something that can be done via the OBDII port, however the ability should exist somewhere. For my particular vehicle, there's an aftermarket device that accomplishes this by modifying the signal, which is very helpful for the off-roading crowd who frequently modify their stock vehicles with oversize tires and different gear ratios.
I've had Sprint for almost 10 years with no problems. Customer service is decent, and reception is better than AT&T (I have a company phone with AT&T service and I use them side-by side).
Sprint's rate plans are much cheaper than the competition, at least when you have more than one phone. I have two phones, one for me and one for my wife. I pay $129 a month for two phones to share 1500 minutes, unlimited data, unlimited text, no restrictions on GPS (google maps or Sprint's navigation SW which I think is crap), unlimited calling to any mobile phone, and unlimited nights and weekends (beginning at 7PM). With taxes it comes out to be around $145. Comparable plans on Verizon and AT&T are $179-$189, before tax.
I've thought of getting an iPhone, and i've considered switching carriers, but I see no point when my current service works well and is $50 less per month.
I can live with that, but I really want to know where I can buy a pair of those glasses. It was only a month ago when they revealed that Kim Jong Il was setting fashion trends around the world, so I'd like to sport those glasses. The retro aviator style glasses are out, Kim Jong Il's glasses are IN.
Sprint needs to learn a lesson about this effect, especially with regards to their Android phones. They currently offer only two models, the Samsung Moment and HTC Hero. I stopped following all the details when I heard that they're still running old android versions, and only recently (as in five days ago) did they announce that Android 2.1 will be available for these phones 'soon.'
Meanwhile, I've seen lots of hype for the HTC EVO on Sprint, which is supposed to be one fine piece of Android machinery. I'm about due for a new phone as my CrackBerry is showing wear and tear and doesn't hold a charge like it used to three years ago, however I'm in no rush to buy a current Android phone from Sprint considering the new one that's coming out soon. On top of that, I'll probably end up waiting six more months to a year for the buzz to wear off and for prices to drop to a reasonable level.
If the timing is good, Verizon will get an iPhone which will distract everyone from Sprint, and then Sprint will offer a blowout price ($99) for the HTC EVO just to attract some people.
I'm still struggling to understand where things went wrong, and whether this 'fat lazy kid' epidemic I keep hearing about is a regional problem.
My 8 year old nephew lives with me, and his school has all sorts of silly rules on what the kids can and can't bring to lunch. Even if there were no restrictions, I don't think it would matter much. Once homework is done after school, all the neighborhood kids are running around until sunset. All these kids have the newest video game consoles as well, but they choose to play outside as long as the weather permits.
I'm not *that* old, but back when I was in school they provided decently healthy meals and they tasted amazing. Completely against the stereotypes of 'horrid' school lunches, our stuff was better than what you get at most chain restaurants, but I think that was because the cafeteria was staffed mostly with 40+ year old grandmothers of Polish and Slovak descent who were excellent cooks in their own homes.
We didn't have any issue with junk food. Sure there were vending machines that sold sodas, sweet teas, and candy bars, but now that I think about it there weren't many fat kids in school. What happened in the past 15 years, and why was there any need to change anything?
For WPA you don't even need packet injection, just deauth a client that is connected, collect their reconnection packets, and then run a dictionary/brute force attack against the handshake.
How long would this take on a decent modern machine, say a ~2.5GHz quad core processor?
I'm only curious because I have a 64 character string as my key, with random letters (mixed case) and symbols. I don't have anything to be paranoid about, but I do like security. What I worry about is that a determined cracker could capture data and store it, then work on cracking the key, and then months later have access to any of that data.
It seems that their biggest concern is with email. Even enforcing SSL for exchange webmail doesn't mean much as the data on the end user's computer is there, with the potential to be archived/cached, unencrypted. That sounds like a legitimate concern to me, however all the companies I've worked for in the past five years, where I have dealt with sensitive information, have allowed webmail access from personal machines. To my knowledge there haven't been any incidents, however the possibility exists.
As for having internet access on personal computers, the hospital could easily provide a free wifi link with no access to the internal network, however at that point it becomes a WiFi hotspot and probably has a very limited business use. I once worked at a place that had a lot of customers on site all the time, and we were kind enough to provide them with a secured access point for fairly open internet access.
Chick-Fil-A is awesome. I just took my family there last night (though I should have waited until tonight - my restaurant has Family Night every Wednesday where kids get a free kids meal and free ice cream!)
Chick-Fil-A's toys are pretty cool and unique as well. The last few times we've been getting books, and the best toy so far was plastic toy laboratory equipment. My two year old daughter plays with them in the bathtub, pretending to be a chemist and measuring out different volumes of bathwater.
I do my DELL firmware upgrades via a USB stick and USBDOS. Create a bootable USB stick that runs barebones DOS, then copy firmware update.exe, boot, launch, done. The floppy drive is broken on the one system I own that has one.
Speaking of building massive databases, I recently bought a wireless router that had a $10 rebate. While I was preparing the rebate paperwork, I began to get really paranoid when I realized that the UPC I had to include contained the serial number and mac address of my new router. This info could be used to create a massive database of tying a MAC address to personally identifiable information, specifically your home address.
I'm not too comfortable knowing that someone could locate me like that, however I guess the online store I bought it from could just as easily have that same information. Likewise (or maybe even worse) PC manufacturers could easily keep details that link MAC addresses of a new machine's wireless card to buyer's name and address.
On the other hand, I'd bet my browser configuration and surfing habits could probably be used to identify me much better; at least data correlating my MAC address to my home address is limited to the system it's stored on or whomever the data gets sold to. Sadly I ran out of tinfoil today.
I can't speak much about the industry my former employer is in due to ongoing litigation, however I can say that there was a desperate and urgent need to re-write our core software from scratch as the existing product simply didn't and couldn't deliver what was promised and contractually agreed to. The architecture was severely flawed, and there was no way in hell it would scale to the level the customer wanted (and paid for).
I helped design the architecture for the next generation and we had a good prototype, but upper management stepped in and blocked our efforts citing the cost as being too high, claiming we didn't have the R&D budget to 'waste' on another team re-writing code that was already written. This decision came mostly from TWO individuals who by no coincidence were heavily involved in the development of the crappy software (they were project managers). They wanted to protect their image, and claimed that the existing software could be fixed, and that would be more cost effective.
Needless to say, they never delivered what they promised, customer wasn't happy, and customer is now withholding payment, and is suing to get back some of what they already paid. The company hasn't found any new customers for their awful product, and their future doesn't look so bright.
I took my wife, my two year old daughter, and seven year old nephew on a road trip from NYC to Huntsville, AL and back, all over the course of four days. We brought a portable DVD player, but ended up not using it at all. Don't ask me how, but the kids had a wonderful time enjoying the scenery and engaging in interesting conversation with us.
I guess the fact that we're always driving somewhere on the weekends helps since they're used to being in the car.
XBMC is one awesome approach that provides movies and gaming. I too have a friend who did this.
Another friend of mine had an interesting setup with a custom touchscreen in the center of the dash and two more in the headrests for the rear passengers that were connected to a microATX PC in the trunk. mp3car.com provides a ton of resources for the project. In this friend's case, he had a media center, GPS receiver with navigation software, an OBDII diagnostics utility, and a few other neat utilities. It was a cool setup, but as with any 'custom' solution it can be a chore to troubleshoot any problems that may arise. In my experience, the manufacturer-provided ICE systems usually 'just work' without much trouble.
It's similar to what's unofficially called "the CSI effect." People (especially nitwits on juries) watch too much television and don't think for themselves.
Holy crap! I just heard that term referenced in some article a while back, but there's actually a wikipedia entry!
My uncle had an Asteroids cabinet complete with a vector monitor and all I remember is WOW those lines were bright! I couldn't imagine playing that thing for one hour straight, let alone for 58 hours.
The Wii is an even better example. Such wasted potential with the wiimote. Most of the crap on the Wii is shovelware that uses the wiimote's features for half-hearted party games that do not even seem to respond all that properly to the wiimote, at least in my experience.
I couldn't agree more, though I love the Wii remote and nunchuck for first person shooter games. To me, nothing is worse than having to aim with an analog stick; I typically prefer a mouse (on a PC gaming platform) however the Wii remote works great for shoot-at-the-screen games (Ghost Squad, anyone?)
I just noticed recently that there's this new thing called "Wii MotionPlus." I didn't look into the details, but apparently it's just some more precise accelerometers for the Wii remote controller. Again, I didn't look into the details too deeply, but I saw a handful of reviews that say while the precision is great but it needs constant recalibration to work effectively.
Now I may be comp
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, nevermind.
[Citation Needed]
It's really not a problem unless you're in a severely congested area. There are some hotspots that get really crowded, but for the most part people know to just keep moving, or if you want to stop, get out of the main path of pedestrian traffic.
The problem is when I just want to get where I'm going, and there's a herd of 20 tourists from the same group blocking the entire sidewalk. I don't have a problem with herds of tourists, NY is a nice city to visit and people are very welcoming of visitors, but just have some courtesy and get out of the way. I bet these are the same people that stay in the left lane when driving on highways and don't get over to let faster traffic pass.
I'm curious to know what it's like to drive an all-electric vehicle. I really like the concept and hope it becomes real in my lifetime. A former coworker is converting an Opel GT (69?) into an EV and I can't wait to see it when he's done!
I do like the idea of having a backup gasoline engine, like in the Volt (allowing you to own a car that is capable of going beyond 300 miles or whatever the all-electric range is). It would also be nice if Toyota/Ford/Honda offered plug-in capabilities with their hybrids and allowed them to go all-electric for short ranges.
I take it you haven't flown on an American carrier recently. Ok, they charge for beer, but most airlines have modern entertainment systems for their international flights. Continental has a nifty on-demand video system from Panasonic, and yes it DOES run Linux...
Then let those fleet managers choose to buy/integrate/use those systems. Such tracking systems already exist from other providers and can be integrated with existing vehicles (and they're not tied to one specific vehicle manufacturer). Let the other millions of regular owners decide whether they want the technology or not.
On the other hand, most typical consumers don't think like your typical slashdotter and will blindly buy whatever is available to them and not care about privacy or anything else. Only recently did I realize that I'm not a typical consumer.
Echoing the same thing that's been repeated all over the place here - I don't have anything to hide, but I don't like the idea of my vehicle being accessible remotely; with some unknown third party being able to track by GPS, and remotely access my door locks, diagnostics system, etc. I make the choice to NOT buy any vehicle equipped with a system like OnStar.
I agree with most of what you said, except for the speedometer part. Often times the speedometer is linked to the number of rotations of the wheels. When people change tire sizes or gear ratios (not very common, but it does happen) it's good to have the ability to adjust the speedometer accordingly. If not, you not only get an inaccurate speed indication but an inaccurate odometer reading.
I don't think it should be something that can be done via the OBDII port, however the ability should exist somewhere. For my particular vehicle, there's an aftermarket device that accomplishes this by modifying the signal, which is very helpful for the off-roading crowd who frequently modify their stock vehicles with oversize tires and different gear ratios.
I've had Sprint for almost 10 years with no problems. Customer service is decent, and reception is better than AT&T (I have a company phone with AT&T service and I use them side-by side).
Sprint's rate plans are much cheaper than the competition, at least when you have more than one phone. I have two phones, one for me and one for my wife. I pay $129 a month for two phones to share 1500 minutes, unlimited data, unlimited text, no restrictions on GPS (google maps or Sprint's navigation SW which I think is crap), unlimited calling to any mobile phone, and unlimited nights and weekends (beginning at 7PM). With taxes it comes out to be around $145. Comparable plans on Verizon and AT&T are $179-$189, before tax.
I've thought of getting an iPhone, and i've considered switching carriers, but I see no point when my current service works well and is $50 less per month.
So now DPRK propaganda makes it to slashdot?
I can live with that, but I really want to know where I can buy a pair of those glasses. It was only a month ago when they revealed that Kim Jong Il was setting fashion trends around the world, so I'd like to sport those glasses. The retro aviator style glasses are out, Kim Jong Il's glasses are IN.
Sprint needs to learn a lesson about this effect, especially with regards to their Android phones. They currently offer only two models, the Samsung Moment and HTC Hero. I stopped following all the details when I heard that they're still running old android versions, and only recently (as in five days ago) did they announce that Android 2.1 will be available for these phones 'soon.'
Meanwhile, I've seen lots of hype for the HTC EVO on Sprint, which is supposed to be one fine piece of Android machinery. I'm about due for a new phone as my CrackBerry is showing wear and tear and doesn't hold a charge like it used to three years ago, however I'm in no rush to buy a current Android phone from Sprint considering the new one that's coming out soon. On top of that, I'll probably end up waiting six more months to a year for the buzz to wear off and for prices to drop to a reasonable level.
If the timing is good, Verizon will get an iPhone which will distract everyone from Sprint, and then Sprint will offer a blowout price ($99) for the HTC EVO just to attract some people.
I'm still struggling to understand where things went wrong, and whether this 'fat lazy kid' epidemic I keep hearing about is a regional problem.
My 8 year old nephew lives with me, and his school has all sorts of silly rules on what the kids can and can't bring to lunch. Even if there were no restrictions, I don't think it would matter much. Once homework is done after school, all the neighborhood kids are running around until sunset. All these kids have the newest video game consoles as well, but they choose to play outside as long as the weather permits.
I'm not *that* old, but back when I was in school they provided decently healthy meals and they tasted amazing. Completely against the stereotypes of 'horrid' school lunches, our stuff was better than what you get at most chain restaurants, but I think that was because the cafeteria was staffed mostly with 40+ year old grandmothers of Polish and Slovak descent who were excellent cooks in their own homes.
We didn't have any issue with junk food. Sure there were vending machines that sold sodas, sweet teas, and candy bars, but now that I think about it there weren't many fat kids in school. What happened in the past 15 years, and why was there any need to change anything?
How long would this take on a decent modern machine, say a ~2.5GHz quad core processor?
I'm only curious because I have a 64 character string as my key, with random letters (mixed case) and symbols. I don't have anything to be paranoid about, but I do like security. What I worry about is that a determined cracker could capture data and store it, then work on cracking the key, and then months later have access to any of that data.
It seems that their biggest concern is with email. Even enforcing SSL for exchange webmail doesn't mean much as the data on the end user's computer is there, with the potential to be archived/cached, unencrypted. That sounds like a legitimate concern to me, however all the companies I've worked for in the past five years, where I have dealt with sensitive information, have allowed webmail access from personal machines. To my knowledge there haven't been any incidents, however the possibility exists.
As for having internet access on personal computers, the hospital could easily provide a free wifi link with no access to the internal network, however at that point it becomes a WiFi hotspot and probably has a very limited business use. I once worked at a place that had a lot of customers on site all the time, and we were kind enough to provide them with a secured access point for fairly open internet access.
Chick-Fil-A is awesome. I just took my family there last night (though I should have waited until tonight - my restaurant has Family Night every Wednesday where kids get a free kids meal and free ice cream!)
Chick-Fil-A's toys are pretty cool and unique as well. The last few times we've been getting books, and the best toy so far was plastic toy laboratory equipment. My two year old daughter plays with them in the bathtub, pretending to be a chemist and measuring out different volumes of bathwater.
I do my DELL firmware upgrades via a USB stick and USBDOS. Create a bootable USB stick that runs barebones DOS, then copy firmware update .exe, boot, launch, done. The floppy drive is broken on the one system I own that has one.
Speaking of building massive databases, I recently bought a wireless router that had a $10 rebate. While I was preparing the rebate paperwork, I began to get really paranoid when I realized that the UPC I had to include contained the serial number and mac address of my new router. This info could be used to create a massive database of tying a MAC address to personally identifiable information, specifically your home address.
I'm not too comfortable knowing that someone could locate me like that, however I guess the online store I bought it from could just as easily have that same information. Likewise (or maybe even worse) PC manufacturers could easily keep details that link MAC addresses of a new machine's wireless card to buyer's name and address.
On the other hand, I'd bet my browser configuration and surfing habits could probably be used to identify me much better; at least data correlating my MAC address to my home address is limited to the system it's stored on or whomever the data gets sold to. Sadly I ran out of tinfoil today.
I can't speak much about the industry my former employer is in due to ongoing litigation, however I can say that there was a desperate and urgent need to re-write our core software from scratch as the existing product simply didn't and couldn't deliver what was promised and contractually agreed to. The architecture was severely flawed, and there was no way in hell it would scale to the level the customer wanted (and paid for).
I helped design the architecture for the next generation and we had a good prototype, but upper management stepped in and blocked our efforts citing the cost as being too high, claiming we didn't have the R&D budget to 'waste' on another team re-writing code that was already written. This decision came mostly from TWO individuals who by no coincidence were heavily involved in the development of the crappy software (they were project managers). They wanted to protect their image, and claimed that the existing software could be fixed, and that would be more cost effective.
Needless to say, they never delivered what they promised, customer wasn't happy, and customer is now withholding payment, and is suing to get back some of what they already paid. The company hasn't found any new customers for their awful product, and their future doesn't look so bright.
I took my wife, my two year old daughter, and seven year old nephew on a road trip from NYC to Huntsville, AL and back, all over the course of four days. We brought a portable DVD player, but ended up not using it at all. Don't ask me how, but the kids had a wonderful time enjoying the scenery and engaging in interesting conversation with us.
I guess the fact that we're always driving somewhere on the weekends helps since they're used to being in the car.
XBMC is one awesome approach that provides movies and gaming. I too have a friend who did this.
Another friend of mine had an interesting setup with a custom touchscreen in the center of the dash and two more in the headrests for the rear passengers that were connected to a microATX PC in the trunk. mp3car.com provides a ton of resources for the project. In this friend's case, he had a media center, GPS receiver with navigation software, an OBDII diagnostics utility, and a few other neat utilities. It was a cool setup, but as with any 'custom' solution it can be a chore to troubleshoot any problems that may arise. In my experience, the manufacturer-provided ICE systems usually 'just work' without much trouble.
It's similar to what's unofficially called "the CSI effect." People (especially nitwits on juries) watch too much television and don't think for themselves.
Holy crap! I just heard that term referenced in some article a while back, but there's actually a wikipedia entry!
I had the same issue, then one day, BAM! 15 mod points. Used them up before they expired, and got another 15 the next day. Very strange.
My uncle had an Asteroids cabinet complete with a vector monitor and all I remember is WOW those lines were bright! I couldn't imagine playing that thing for one hour straight, let alone for 58 hours.
Too bad this was posted as AC. That comment made my day!
On the other hand, rouge is more of a reddish-pink, so "rouge member" is a very accurate description.
I couldn't agree more, though I love the Wii remote and nunchuck for first person shooter games. To me, nothing is worse than having to aim with an analog stick; I typically prefer a mouse (on a PC gaming platform) however the Wii remote works great for shoot-at-the-screen games (Ghost Squad, anyone?)
I just noticed recently that there's this new thing called "Wii MotionPlus." I didn't look into the details, but apparently it's just some more precise accelerometers for the Wii remote controller. Again, I didn't look into the details too deeply, but I saw a handful of reviews that say while the precision is great but it needs constant recalibration to work effectively. Now I may be comp