Actually HP was a precision measurement and testing company. Their first product was an audio oscillator used to test radio equipment. They soon made very hgih quality microwave (read radar) and radio measurement and testing equipment. They didn't get out of the precision instruments biz untill 1984 when they developed their inkjet technology. They have now spun off this core business as Agilent, so now Hp is in the imaging/ink delivery business and Agilent is a company respected by scientists and engineers for their quality testing and measurement equipment.
It might make you feel a bit better to see that IDG's stock has fallen from a high of ~$24 about the time the first slashdot article was posted (the e-mail list fiasco 10/99) to ~$9 now, maybe you could find some people who held thier stock whole they were out destroying their public image to class action sue them.;)
Get the industrial version it can hadle chemicals like MEK(methel-ethel-ketone a pretty nasty solvent) so paint shouldn't be a problem, maybe a strong acid (but then again if you spill strong acid on your keyboard you have bigger problems.
Yes but Hoover was the first dam to stop the flow of a major river and the others you mentioned used the lessons learned in building Hoover for their design and building. Although any of these are increadable achivements of engineering, the question would just be which is the greatest effort which is arguable indefinately.
Yes, and things have actually been slowly improving. The factories aren't as bad as say, in the ninteenth century. This doesn't mean that the corporations don't want to go back to the old days of lax regulation (witness the sweatshops in developing countries) but government is working and creating a set of rules for them to live by. This also doesn't mean that people can just sit back and think everything is great and we don't need to be vigilant and watch for the corporations tring to grab power and this is what is happening now, they have over reached the power we believe they should have and this upsets us enough to do something about it, if they do something bad enough even more people will become involved and try to correct this. This is one of the advantages of a democracy, it is self correcting to some extent. However this correction is often slow, especially in this era of the 5min attention span, and it often feels like moving the tides. The point is that they can buy polititians and laws until they upset the balance sufficently (seems to be getting there recently) that there is a backlash against it and the people elect canidates running with a specific platform to turn back the laws whcih are upsetting their constituents.
So work the system, explain the problem to people and get them interested in the problem enough to do something about it with you.
I have to agree with what Metallica is doing in this particular instance (asking Napster to remove these users who are in violation, I do disagree with Metallica that Napster should be shut down entirely) BUT Metallica should be held accountable for their actions, i.e. when Napster removes these users from their service state clearly why they are losing access to their Napster accounts - Metallica is forcing us to deny you access to the Napster service (this seemed to work for Time-Warner;)). I'd then like to see what the Metallica CD sales look like from that point on, alienating your customer base is never a good idea if you wish for them to continue being your customers.
This was decided in an appeals court ruling between Diamond and RIAA,
From Wired:
In June, an appeals court judge in California ruled that an MP3 player isn't subject to government restriction. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain sided with Diamond in a 21-page ruling, saying that the Rio is not a "digital audio recording device," and therefore not covered by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.
That law restricts the design of certain consumer audio recording products - making it impossible for users to make second-generation copies of recorded material -- and requires manufacturers of the devices to pay a royalty.
O'Scannlain's ruling cleared the way for more companies to market the devices that can download and compress digital-quality music from the Internet.
Don't just swallow what the RIAA feeds you it has a vested interest in you believing that the HARA does not allow you to create a digital copy of your CD Audio, unfortunately for them the appeals court judge and the Ninth circuit court didn't agree with thier reading of the law.
I agree strogly that this list just covers all of the technology developed in the 20th century (can you think of anything developed in the 20th century that couldn't be included in this list?)
But engineering achivements are not necessitated by their enviromental impact either, (auto, Space Shuttle (BTW CFCs(High Perf Mat?) are much more destructive to O3 than the SS) or even usefulness (space program) mearly amazing feats of applying technology to a specific problem.
For example -
Apollo Program - Apply and advance current technology to send men to the moon and return.
Hoover Dam - Create a dam to block a major river and create the largest man made lake in the world (at least at the time, night still be not sure)
Manhattan project - Produce a few kg of a material that is an extremely rare part of an extremely rare material (isotope separation of U235 or production of plutonium) and fashion it into a weapon that requires a perfectly symmetric explosion to detonate it (plutonium bomb)
Los Angeles/Las Vegas/Phoenix/etc. Water supply - Deliver water to millons of residents and farmers in the middle of a desert.
Any integrated circuit fab plant - Devolop a manufactuing plant completely free of dust, which produces complex electric circuits on tiny slivers of fused sand using light and chemicals in billions of units for a tiny price per unit.
Akashi Kaikyo Bridge - Build a bridge between two points nearly 4km apart which can survive a major earthquake (and be expanded by 1m).
etc....
I really think the internet should be in there, but not number 1.
Well superconductors haven't been applied in a major way to any engineering problem yet (and still could fall under performance materials).
What aviation besides planes? (Radar -Electronics(?) or Radio/Television, Airframes - Performance materials, Jet engines - probably could fall under airplane itself)
Railroads were first developed at the end of the 19th century, so technically they don't have to fall in these catagories since it is excluded by the time of development, so are there any engineering developments of the 20th century that don't fit in one of these catagories?
I would have rather seen a more specific list of SPECIFIC engineering achievments, for instance in no particular order-
Apollo Project MIR/SkyLab Shuttle Program Voyager Missions Any of a number of space projects, not all would make the top of the list
Hoover Dam Aswan High Dam etc..
Akashi Kaikyo Bridge Golden Gate Bridge etc...
Intercontinental communication lines Manhattan Project The first programmable computer Wright brothers airplane Model T ford (1st mass produced automobile) 1st nuclear power plant etc...
Actually I think you are wrong, it is copyright infringment to do this. However, it is completely unenforcable and has become socially acceptable, hence it is sort of like speeding 5-10 mph over the limit, wrong but not generally a big deal. The problem is that unlike speeding, if someone decides to pursue the issue copyright infringement the penalties are serious ($100,000 fine 10? years in prison, federal charges), but generally the only cases pursued are people infringing wholesale, and selling the copied product for profit. The chilling thing about these recent cases is that the companies are trying to pursue the small time infringers through threats (Metallica) and direct lawsuits (Dr.Dre), who have become a bigger problem to them because of programs like Napster.
Why is it that the internal names are generally better than the names that the marketing drones eventually stick on them Itanium/(even williamette or Foster is better I still think they missed their chance with the Sexium), Duron/Spitfire, PIII/Coppermine. I know they want to build name recognition and have a trademark on the name, but that leads to these stupid ass lamer made up names that no one likes, but wow we can legally protect the name (like anyone should want to).
Do you have a link to the legislation passed in Maryland, or at least(or better) an article explaining the differences between the UCITA passed by Maryland and that proposed?
1) Yes one key feature (read required) of modern reptiles is that it is endothermic (read cold blooded) (see http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/ibls/DEEB/biomedi a/units/rept9.htm), thus both smaller and larger reptiles both thermoregulate.
2)Your argument in the original post was that larger herbivorous dinosaurs would generally have no need for long sustained periods of activity...impling from your 1st paragraph that they were the cold blooded group. I was just giving a modern large herbivore which is not cold blooded (maybe elephants, or better hippos would be better, hippos only move quickly on rare occasions and then only for short periods).
3)I was mearly pointing out that the argument in your 2nd paragraph, impling that larger herbivores did not need to be warm blooded, was rejected by your argument in the last paragraph that there is advantage in being warm blooded to escape predation.
So is your argument that both herbivores and carnivores are cold and warm blooded without reasons, since the reasoning you gave strongly favored one group being warm and the other being cold. Or is your argument that there are exceptions in each group (BTW the dino heart they found was in a herbivore) which are not representative, and generally follow the logic you layed out.
If you look at modern reptiles, the larger species tend lead more or less sedentary lives, whereas the smaller ones tend to be far more active.
But all are cold blooded.
Larger herbivorous dinosaurs (hey look, I used my big word for the day..herbivorous!) would generally have no need for long, sustained periods of activity.
That would explain all the cold bloded cows out there.
Anyway, all that science mumbo-jumbo is beside yje point. If I were a dinosaur, I would prefer being warm-blooded to escape predation. Its kinda hard to hide behind a palm tree when you're 5 stories tall, and as wide as a house.:)
Arguing against your own logic that big herbivores are cold blooded and predators are warm blooded?
No offence ment but I hate seeing that much flawed logic in a couple of paragraphs.
Even if you think carbon dating is bunk this is not how these samples are dated (Carbon dating is only good to several tens of thousands of years, before that IIRC this is because the measurement of the ratio of the carbon isotopes becomes difficult/unreliable when there is very little C13, i.e. after many half lives) IIRC similar methods but different isotopes are used to determine ealier dates.
The way to think of it is that you don't need to know when to check your clock just to reset it to the correct time, the increased time in the fountain clock mearly allows more time to pass before you check the two clocks against each other (using a microwave transition in cesium).
For example if you set your watch to the proverbial "town clock" then check again in a minute they are not very different and it is hard to measure the difference, however if you wait a month, the differences add up to an easily seen and measured correction to the watch.
In an atomic clock you are measuring the clock of cesium letting your clock run some more and checking the difference (the cesium transition is the "town clock" or more accurately it is used to define the second) and correcting your "watch" so it is again at the proper time (frequency). The reason the fountain clock is more precise is the same reason it is more precise to wait a month to measure the difference on your watch, if you wait to short a time it is very difficult (although not impossible - the regular cesium atomic clock) to measure the change. The fountain clock gives seconds to let the clocks run while the regular atomic clocks only allow microseconds.
There's more involved here but this is a simple explaination, off the top of my head, and only peripherally related to my field of study. There might be a more detailed explaination at the NIST website since thier fountain clock is going online soon or has recently gone on line.
So the direct answer to your argument is that the cesium transition keeps the correct time and to get a very accurate clock we can measure time with we contiually reset our watch to the correct "cesium" time.
FYI, yes NIST has made a cesium fountain clock a few orders of magnitude more accurate than the standard cesium clock using laser cooled atoms.
A simple way to describe an atomic clock is that you set the clock at one point then wait and compare the values a little later, for instance you check your watch against a known standard (say the "town clock") wait for a day and check it again and see if your watch is different from the standard.
In an atomic clock cesium is the standard, the limit on the comparison in the old style atomic clocks is that the cesium is moving very fast so the time between setting and checking your clock is VERY short (microseconds IIRC).
The cesium fountain clock makes the time between setting and checking your clock much longer by laser cooling the atoms first, then throwing them upward in a fountain.
and thus extends the precision of the measurement because you let the two clocks run longer before checking them against one another, seconds instead of microseconds.
Tell this to the people during the fifties brought before the House Unamerican Activities Commission, many had been members or knew members of communism/socialism well before it was considered something to arouse suspicion etc.
Using the FBI in this kind of witch-hunt is possible, however the current laws restrict it to a limited amount. Thus we should be vigilant about any further erosion of privacy rights, but realize that there should be a limit, such as when there is probable cause to believe someone is conducting illegal activity, then the FBI can get a warrant. If you allow investigation wholesale, you run the risk of the information being used not to procecute illegal acts, but persecute associations and legal actions which you might prefer everyone didn't know.
What I'd be interested in is a true combination of the two technologies MP3 and CDs. The combination I'm looking for is a CD player which can also read MP3s like those coming to market, but downloads them into a RAM card. Thus there is no chance of skipping once loaded to the memory, also increased battery life because the CD is spinning only when downloading or playing regular CDs, and a lot of cheap storage for songs, the main drawback of the RIO like modules (say I want to bring more than 60 minutes and don't want to buy a number of expensive memory modules). I know this would cost more but I would be willing to pay for the combined cost because of the advantages.
Has anyone seen anything like this out there or do I have to build it?
I'm sorry about your case it seems a misuse of the law as a weapon, but the new rules described would not have protected you, and would have probably led to the same misinformation, or worse.
The rules described allow the police or procecutors in the case to release the name the charge and any public record on the case but not to further comment on it or any witnesses in the case, this is probably exactly what the police/procecutor gave the local media in your case, the problem was that the media did not try to find out any more information - thus leading them to print the story as simply XX arrested for Child pornography sensational headline without having to get any facts, just the simple information the police can still provide under the rules. So these new rules don't really change the standard operating procedure of the release of information to the media they just confuse the issue enough that the police/procecutor aren't telling the media anything at the moment, even things that are in the public record (police logs of arrests/charges cases) which can be important to see if the police are abusing their athority as PUBLIC servants.
Note the hack described used 1500mW directional to get a 14km range(or 1.5W in case you can't convert this is over the limit stated by the FCC for this frequency band and use).
Interesting that use of this frequency requires frequency hopping, anyone who knows more than me about what this means for interferrence between units?
Slashdot Mirror
Actually HP was a precision measurement and testing company. Their first product was an audio oscillator used to test radio equipment. They soon made very hgih quality microwave (read radar) and radio measurement and testing equipment. They didn't get out of the precision instruments biz untill 1984 when they developed their inkjet technology. They have now spun off this core business as Agilent, so now Hp is in the imaging/ink delivery business and Agilent is a company respected by scientists and engineers for their quality testing and measurement equipment.
It might make you feel a bit better to see that IDG's stock has fallen from a high of ~$24 about the time the first slashdot article was posted (the e-mail list fiasco 10/99) to ~$9 now, maybe you could find some people who held thier stock whole they were out destroying their public image to class action sue them. ;)
Get the industrial version it can hadle chemicals like MEK(methel-ethel-ketone a pretty nasty solvent) so paint shouldn't be a problem, maybe a strong acid (but then again if you spill strong acid on your keyboard you have bigger problems.
Yes but Hoover was the first dam to stop the flow of a major river and the others you mentioned used the lessons learned in building Hoover for their design and building. Although any of these are increadable achivements of engineering, the question would just be which is the greatest effort which is arguable indefinately.
Yes, and things have actually been slowly improving. The factories aren't as bad as say, in the ninteenth century. This doesn't mean that the corporations don't want to go back to the old days of lax regulation (witness the sweatshops in developing countries) but government is working and creating a set of rules for them to live by. This also doesn't mean that people can just sit back and think everything is great and we don't need to be vigilant and watch for the corporations tring to grab power and this is what is happening now, they have over reached the power we believe they should have and this upsets us enough to do something about it, if they do something bad enough even more people will become involved and try to correct this. This is one of the advantages of a democracy, it is self correcting to some extent. However this correction is often slow, especially in this era of the 5min attention span, and it often feels like moving the tides. The point is that they can buy polititians and laws until they upset the balance sufficently (seems to be getting there recently) that there is a backlash against it and the people elect canidates running with a specific platform to turn back the laws whcih are upsetting their constituents.
So work the system, explain the problem to people and get them interested in the problem enough to do something about it with you.
Yes I agree completely with what you've said.
;)). I'd then like to see what the Metallica CD sales look like from that point on, alienating your customer base is never a good idea if you wish for them to continue being your customers.
I have to agree with what Metallica is doing in this particular instance (asking Napster to remove these users who are in violation, I do disagree with Metallica that Napster should be shut down entirely) BUT Metallica should be held accountable for their actions, i.e. when Napster removes these users from their service state clearly why they are losing access to their Napster accounts - Metallica is forcing us to deny you access to the Napster service (this seemed to work for Time-Warner
***BZZZZZT***
WRONG
This was decided in an appeals court ruling between Diamond and RIAA,
From Wired:
In June, an appeals court judge in California ruled that an MP3 player isn't subject to government restriction. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diarmuid F. O'Scannlain sided with Diamond in a 21-page ruling, saying that the Rio is not a "digital audio recording device," and therefore not covered by the Audio Home Recording Act of 1992.
That law restricts the design of certain consumer audio recording products - making it impossible for users to make second-generation copies of recorded material -- and requires manufacturers of the devices to pay a royalty.
O'Scannlain's ruling cleared the way for more companies to market the devices that can download and compress digital-quality music from the Internet.
Don't just swallow what the RIAA feeds you it has a vested interest in you believing that the HARA does not allow you to create a digital copy of your CD Audio, unfortunately for them the appeals court judge and the Ninth circuit court didn't agree with thier reading of the law.
I agree strogly that this list just covers all of the technology developed in the 20th century (can you think of anything developed in the 20th century that couldn't be included in this list?)
But engineering achivements are not necessitated by their enviromental impact either, (auto, Space Shuttle (BTW CFCs(High Perf Mat?) are much more destructive to O3 than the SS) or even usefulness (space program) mearly amazing feats of applying technology to a specific problem.
For example -
Apollo Program - Apply and advance current technology to send men to the moon and return.
Hoover Dam - Create a dam to block a major river and create the largest man made lake in the world (at least at the time, night still be not sure)
Manhattan project - Produce a few kg of a material that is an extremely rare part of an extremely rare material (isotope separation of U235 or production of plutonium) and fashion it into a weapon that requires a perfectly symmetric explosion to detonate it (plutonium bomb)
Los Angeles/Las Vegas/Phoenix/etc. Water supply -
Deliver water to millons of residents and farmers in the middle of a desert.
Any integrated circuit fab plant - Devolop a manufactuing plant completely free of dust, which produces complex electric circuits on tiny slivers of fused sand using light and chemicals in billions of units for a tiny price per unit.
Akashi Kaikyo Bridge - Build a bridge between two points nearly 4km apart which can survive a major earthquake (and be expanded by 1m).
etc....
I really think the internet should be in there, but not number 1.
Well superconductors haven't been applied in a major way to any engineering problem yet (and still could fall under performance materials).
What aviation besides planes? (Radar -Electronics(?) or Radio/Television, Airframes - Performance materials, Jet engines - probably could fall under airplane itself)
Railroads were first developed at the end of the 19th century, so technically they don't have to fall in these catagories since it is excluded by the time of development, so are there any engineering developments of the 20th century that don't fit in one of these catagories?
I would have rather seen a more specific list of SPECIFIC engineering achievments, for instance in no particular order-
Apollo Project
MIR/SkyLab
Shuttle Program
Voyager Missions
Any of a number of space projects, not all would make the top of the list
Hoover Dam
Aswan High Dam
etc..
Akashi Kaikyo Bridge
Golden Gate Bridge
etc...
Intercontinental communication lines
Manhattan Project
The first programmable computer
Wright brothers airplane
Model T ford (1st mass produced automobile)
1st nuclear power plant
etc...
And medicines aren't engineering (although one could argue the medical infrastructure is)
Actually I think you are wrong, it is copyright infringment to do this. However, it is completely unenforcable and has become socially acceptable, hence it is sort of like speeding 5-10 mph over the limit, wrong but not generally a big deal. The problem is that unlike speeding, if someone decides to pursue the issue copyright infringement the penalties are serious ($100,000 fine 10? years in prison, federal charges), but generally the only cases pursued are people infringing wholesale, and selling the copied product for profit. The chilling thing about these recent cases is that the companies are trying to pursue the small time infringers through threats (Metallica) and direct lawsuits (Dr.Dre), who have become a bigger problem to them because of programs like Napster.
Why is it that the internal names are generally better than the names that the marketing drones eventually stick on them Itanium/(even williamette or Foster is better I still think they missed their chance with the Sexium), Duron/Spitfire, PIII/Coppermine. I know they want to build name recognition and have a trademark on the name, but that leads to these stupid ass lamer made up names that no one likes, but wow we can legally protect the name (like anyone should want to).
Do you have a link to the legislation passed in Maryland, or at least(or better) an article explaining the differences between the UCITA passed by Maryland and that proposed?
This just suggests that AMD is picking up market share in a big way.
here's a good site with even more evidence of an old earth.
http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/creation/index .html
He also has a cool list of fallacious arguments. http://www.cs.colorado.edu/~lindsay/skeptic/argume nts.html
1) Yes one key feature (read required) of modern reptiles is that it is endothermic (read cold blooded) (see http://www.gla.ac.uk/departments/ibls/DEEB/biomedi a/units/rept9.htm), thus both smaller and larger reptiles both thermoregulate.
...impling from your 1st paragraph that they were the cold blooded group. I was just giving a modern large herbivore which is not cold blooded (maybe elephants, or better hippos would be better, hippos only move quickly on rare occasions and then only for short periods).
2)Your argument in the original post was that larger herbivorous dinosaurs would generally have no need for long sustained periods of activity
3)I was mearly pointing out that the argument in your 2nd paragraph, impling that larger herbivores did not need to be warm blooded, was rejected by your argument in the last paragraph that there is advantage in being warm blooded to escape predation.
So is your argument that both herbivores and carnivores are cold and warm blooded without reasons, since the reasoning you gave strongly favored one group being warm and the other being cold. Or is your argument that there are exceptions in each group (BTW the dino heart they found was in a herbivore) which are not representative, and generally follow the logic you layed out.
If you look at modern reptiles, the larger species tend lead more or less sedentary lives, whereas the smaller ones tend to be far more active.
But all are cold blooded.
Larger herbivorous dinosaurs (hey look, I used my big word for the day..herbivorous!) would generally have no need for long, sustained periods of activity.
That would explain all the cold bloded cows out there.
Anyway, all that science mumbo-jumbo is beside yje point. If I were a dinosaur, I would prefer being warm-blooded to escape predation. Its kinda hard to hide behind a palm tree when you're 5 stories tall, and as wide as a house. :)
Arguing against your own logic that big herbivores are cold blooded and predators are warm blooded?
No offence ment but I hate seeing that much flawed logic in a couple of paragraphs.
Even if you think carbon dating is bunk this is not how these samples are dated (Carbon dating is only good to several tens of thousands of years, before that IIRC this is because the measurement of the ratio of the carbon isotopes becomes difficult/unreliable when there is very little C13, i.e. after many half lives) IIRC similar methods but different isotopes are used to determine ealier dates.
The way to think of it is that you don't need to know when to check your clock just to reset it to the correct time, the increased time in the fountain clock mearly allows more time to pass before you check the two clocks against each other (using a microwave transition in cesium).
For example if you set your watch to the proverbial "town clock" then check again in a minute they are not very different and it is hard to measure the difference, however if you wait a month, the differences add up to an easily seen and measured correction to the watch.
In an atomic clock you are measuring the clock of cesium letting your clock run some more and checking the difference (the cesium transition is the "town clock" or more accurately it is used to define the second) and correcting your "watch" so it is again at the proper time (frequency). The reason the fountain clock is more precise is the same reason it is more precise to wait a month to measure the difference on your watch, if you wait to short a time it is very difficult (although not impossible - the regular cesium atomic clock) to measure the change. The fountain clock gives seconds to let the clocks run while the regular atomic clocks only allow microseconds.
There's more involved here but this is a simple explaination, off the top of my head, and only peripherally related to my field of study. There might be a more detailed explaination at the NIST website since thier fountain clock is going online soon or has recently gone on line.
So the direct answer to your argument is that the cesium transition keeps the correct time and to get a very accurate clock we can measure time with we contiually reset our watch to the correct "cesium" time.
FYI, yes NIST has made a cesium fountain clock a few orders of magnitude more accurate than the standard cesium clock using laser cooled atoms.
A simple way to describe an atomic clock is that you set the clock at one point then wait and compare the values a little later, for instance you check your watch against a known standard (say the "town clock") wait for a day and check it again and see if your watch is different from the standard.
In an atomic clock cesium is the standard, the limit on the comparison in the old style atomic clocks is that the cesium is moving very fast so the time between setting and checking your clock is VERY short (microseconds IIRC).
The cesium fountain clock makes the time between setting and checking your clock much longer by laser cooling the atoms first, then throwing them upward in a fountain.
and thus extends the precision of the measurement because you let the two clocks run longer before checking them against one another, seconds instead of microseconds.
By adding disks or inceasing size instead of increasing data density the costs per MB go up considerably.
The point is how to get the most storage for the lowest cost.
Tell this to the people during the fifties brought before the House Unamerican Activities Commission, many had been members or knew members of communism/socialism well before it was considered something to arouse suspicion etc.
Using the FBI in this kind of witch-hunt is possible, however the current laws restrict it to a limited amount. Thus we should be vigilant about any further erosion of privacy rights, but realize that there should be a limit, such as when there is probable cause to believe someone is conducting illegal activity, then the FBI can get a warrant. If you allow investigation wholesale, you run the risk of the information being used not to procecute illegal acts, but persecute associations and legal actions which you might prefer everyone didn't know.
What I'd be interested in is a true combination of the two technologies MP3 and CDs. The combination I'm looking for is a CD player which can also read MP3s like those coming to market, but downloads them into a RAM card.
Thus there is no chance of skipping once loaded to the memory, also increased battery life because the CD is spinning only when downloading or playing regular CDs, and a lot of cheap storage for songs, the main drawback of the RIO like modules (say I want to bring more than 60 minutes and don't want to buy a number of expensive memory modules). I know this would cost more but I would be willing to pay for the combined cost because of the advantages.
Has anyone seen anything like this out there or do I have to build it?
I'm sorry about your case it seems a misuse of the law as a weapon, but the new rules described would not have protected you, and would have probably led to the same misinformation, or worse.
The rules described allow the police or procecutors in the case to release the name the charge and any public record on the case but not to further comment on it or any witnesses in the case, this is probably exactly what the police/procecutor gave the local media in your case, the problem was that the media did not try to find out any more information - thus leading them to print the story as simply XX arrested for Child pornography sensational headline without having to get any facts, just the simple information the police can still provide under the rules. So these new rules don't really change the standard operating procedure of the release of information to the media they just confuse the issue enough that the police/procecutor aren't telling the media anything at the moment, even things that are in the public record (police logs of arrests/charges cases) which can be important to see if the police are abusing their athority as PUBLIC servants.
Up to 1 W of output power according to the FCC regs for this frequency band FCC (47 CFR) Part 15C, Section 15.247 The relavent code according to the Lucent website for the WaveLAN(Orinoco) cards.
Note the hack described used 1500mW directional to get a 14km range(or 1.5W in case you can't convert this is over the limit stated by the FCC for this frequency band and use).
Interesting that use of this frequency requires frequency hopping, anyone who knows more than me about what this means for interferrence between units?