About the only thing it will be good for is emergency communication in remote areas.
I could be mistaken here, but the impression I got from the article was that the primary motivation for this system is to "provide emergency communications in remote areas" (and also on ships and trains) without the worry that the comms infrastructure could be totally decimated by an earthquake/flood. As such, 100 Mbit/s (not 10 as you wrote, but I'm sure that was just a typo) should be plenty even in 2015.
Just had a look on google, and it turns out that (in Britain anyway) the speed cameras are digital - i.e. there was never a true film photograph which was subsequently digitised. Maybe this kind of problem could be avoided if actual film was used? It would complicate processing of the data by introducing an extra step (scanning the photo), but if the original negative is archived, maybe that can be used to prove no tampering took place? Maybe this is impractical, but if purely digital images + MD5 hashes are going to be considered untrustworthy by the courts, could it be the best option? (Alternatively the speed camera could simultaneously take a digital photo and a film photo, saving you the trouble of scanning. The negative would be developed only if the digital photo is disputed)
Apparently they "couldn't" find an expert. I wonder if that means they couldn't find a willing expert? I guess mathmaticians must hate speed cameras as much as anyone else...
In all seriousness, that linked article was pretty light on facts. I mean, was the defendant saying that the police had gone to the trouble to figure out how to doctor the image in such a way that the MD5 checksum was preserved? That must take some effort, surely? Or was it claimed that both the image and the checksum had been altered?
I started learning on the ZX Spectrum when I was 8 years old - BASIC followed quite quickly by an obsession with Z80 assembler (followed by 68000 a few years after that, on the Amiga). I've never found it so easy to pick up a programming language as I did then. Several of my friends were the same.
I'm with you. As soon as my son is a little older (he's 13 months now), I'm making sure he knows his way around a computer. Can't see the point of waiting until they reach high-school age. It would be like not teaching your kid to read until 13 years old, back in the mid-20th century.
Kids are best at learning when they're young, especially when it comes to languages. I haven't seen any research on this, but I imagine that also applies to learning the "vocabulary" of computers (and almost certainly to programming languages).
Perhaps a single bacterium would "lay cable" (snigger, sorry) very slowly, but we have potentially massive parallelism here, provided you can find a way to actually control what these organisms do. No use if they just produce a load of nano-wire-wool, obviously!
Actually I am a fellow Brit, and I'm more than familiar with the phenomenon. It wasn't a personal dig - feel free to reinterpret the post as "why do so many people put up with that crap":-) myself included on occasions.
My favourite variant of your suggested experiment was, without a doubt, Mr Shake Hands Man (from Banzai), followed closely by that woman who'd interview celebrities but only ask one question (followed by silent nodding and smiling).... if I remember correctly, it wasn't just the British celebs who would fall for it.
The technique was tried on a variety of materials including matt-finish plastic cards, identity cards and coated paperboard packaging and resulted in clear recognition between the samples. This continued even after they were subjected to rough handling including submersion in water, scorching, scrubbing with an abrasive cleaning pad and being scribbled on with thick black marker.
It's not illegal, and we don't keep this policy a secret from our customers. If they don't like it they're free to buy a competitor's product (which many of them do - we're not the market leader by any means). This isn't to say I like my current employers - they really do suck in terms of their attitude towards their employees, and I'm looking for a new job as we speak. But I'm not sure you could label them as immoral based on this marketing strategy alone - as you hint, it's hardly unusual.
His idea sounds like a naive version of "Rods from God" to me, which would indeed involve a guidance satellite working together with the satellite carrying/dropping the rods.
Tell me about it. I work for a printer manufacturing company, and we make virtually nothing on the printers themselves. There is an enormous profit margin on the ink, on the other hand - without it we'd be nowhere. Hence, my company goes to a fair amount of trouble to make sure that third-party stuff won't work properly with our printers (i.e if it works at all you get faded colours).
You might get your wish, as according to the EFF investigations are already underway to see whether Rackspace violated the UK Data Protection Act or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
Slashdot Mirror
About the only thing it will be good for is emergency communication in remote areas.
I could be mistaken here, but the impression I got from the article was that the primary motivation for this system is to "provide emergency communications in remote areas" (and also on ships and trains) without the worry that the comms infrastructure could be totally decimated by an earthquake/flood. As such, 100 Mbit/s (not 10 as you wrote, but I'm sure that was just a typo) should be plenty even in 2015.
Just had a look on google, and it turns out that (in Britain anyway) the speed cameras are digital - i.e. there was never a true film photograph which was subsequently digitised. Maybe this kind of problem could be avoided if actual film was used? It would complicate processing of the data by introducing an extra step (scanning the photo), but if the original negative is archived, maybe that can be used to prove no tampering took place? Maybe this is impractical, but if purely digital images + MD5 hashes are going to be considered untrustworthy by the courts, could it be the best option? (Alternatively the speed camera could simultaneously take a digital photo and a film photo, saving you the trouble of scanning. The negative would be developed only if the digital photo is disputed)
Okay I'll get back to work now.......
I wonder whether the Brits/French use a similar system to Australia.... hmmmm............
Apparently they "couldn't" find an expert. I wonder if that means they couldn't find a willing expert? I guess mathmaticians must hate speed cameras as much as anyone else...
In all seriousness, that linked article was pretty light on facts. I mean, was the defendant saying that the police had gone to the trouble to figure out how to doctor the image in such a way that the MD5 checksum was preserved? That must take some effort, surely? Or was it claimed that both the image and the checksum had been altered?
You may not microwave this box for more than 5 minutes on High
Worse still: you may not share this food with anyone else, nor may you reheat it tomorrow.
RFID chips in license plates that can transmit VINs and other data to appropriate receivers
That's what's worrying me. What other data? Will it or won't it be data that the police would normally be able to link to your number plate?
I started learning on the ZX Spectrum when I was 8 years old - BASIC followed quite quickly by an obsession with Z80 assembler (followed by 68000 a few years after that, on the Amiga). I've never found it so easy to pick up a programming language as I did then. Several of my friends were the same.
I'm with you. As soon as my son is a little older (he's 13 months now), I'm making sure he knows his way around a computer. Can't see the point of waiting until they reach high-school age. It would be like not teaching your kid to read until 13 years old, back in the mid-20th century.
Kids are best at learning when they're young, especially when it comes to languages. I haven't seen any research on this, but I imagine that also applies to learning the "vocabulary" of computers (and almost certainly to programming languages).
Perhaps a single bacterium would "lay cable" (snigger, sorry) very slowly, but we have potentially massive parallelism here, provided you can find a way to actually control what these organisms do. No use if they just produce a load of nano-wire-wool, obviously!
Actually, geobacter is more interesting for its ability to decontaminate soil.
It's okay, it's logically sound: geobacter does not use "oxigen", nor indeed does anything else. Also, fire-breathing vampires don't have eyes.
Actually I am a fellow Brit, and I'm more than familiar with the phenomenon. It wasn't a personal dig - feel free to reinterpret the post as "why do so many people put up with that crap" :-) myself included on occasions.
My favourite variant of your suggested experiment was, without a doubt, Mr Shake Hands Man (from Banzai), followed closely by that woman who'd interview celebrities but only ask one question (followed by silent nodding and smiling).... if I remember correctly, it wasn't just the British celebs who would fall for it.
Admittedly the extended warranty is a waste of money for a toaster. But why do you stand there for 20 minutes listening to that crap?
Ouch.
D'oh. Apologies for duplicating the quote used in this post just below.
From here:
The technique was tried on a variety of materials including matt-finish plastic cards, identity cards and coated paperboard packaging and resulted in clear recognition between the samples. This continued even after they were subjected to rough handling including submersion in water, scorching, scrubbing with an abrasive cleaning pad and being scribbled on with thick black marker.Sorry for the delay...
It's not illegal, and we don't keep this policy a secret from our customers. If they don't like it they're free to buy a competitor's product (which many of them do - we're not the market leader by any means). This isn't to say I like my current employers - they really do suck in terms of their attitude towards their employees, and I'm looking for a new job as we speak. But I'm not sure you could label them as immoral based on this marketing strategy alone - as you hint, it's hardly unusual.
His idea sounds like a naive version of "Rods from God" to me, which would indeed involve a guidance satellite working together with the satellite carrying/dropping the rods.
Tell me about it. I work for a printer manufacturing company, and we make virtually nothing on the printers themselves. There is an enormous profit margin on the ink, on the other hand - without it we'd be nowhere. Hence, my company goes to a fair amount of trouble to make sure that third-party stuff won't work properly with our printers (i.e if it works at all you get faded colours).
Too late! There is already a card trick performing robot!
Um.... look again. It's under Linux aswell.
You omitted "parcel" and "huddle" (reference).
Don't you send your posts from an anonymizing location via someone else's rootkitted system?
Absolutely. Nice box you have too :-)
You might get your wish, as according to the EFF investigations are already underway to see whether Rackspace violated the UK Data Protection Act or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act.
Talking about dropping the ball: (from the EFF site)
the logs that the government requested didn't exist, so Rackspace should never have given the government anything at all.
Just what is going on here exactly?