Another fun fact: it is the universal station ID. No matter what mode you operate (AM, FM, PSK, etc) you can always ID with morse code. I think that's the only real benefit to learning it. However most of the IDers on repeater controlers are set to ludicrous speed, so good luck getting the ID with your 5wpm profeciency.
That seems to be the ARRL's attitude, since they just about demanded the FCC maintain the code requirement. The prunes are right next to the honeymush.
I guess you must be much smarter than I am, and most of the hams I've been talking to. I'm having a terrible time learning morse. I set a goal of having it down by a hamfest in Sepember, and I hope I can make it. I think it stinks that I can get all the theory, build circuits, program PCs, and fix just about anything, but I can't transmit below 50MHz because I can't seem to learn a 150 year old communications method.
Most hams seem to take the attitude of "I had to learn it, I'm glad I did, but I don't use it" when it comes to code. If my current difficulty learning code continues, I really doubt I'll use it, unless my life depends on it (which, since no one else will be able to understand, will be a useless excercise). Too many bad memories.
Of course, the pro-code group will start slamming the FCC with form letters DEMANDING they keep the morse code requirement (and getting rid of all the fornecation and cussin' on the broadcast stations while they're at it). Since most of the people who don't want the code requirement aren't all that militant, the FCC will cave. As usual the ARRL will editorialize in QST about how great it was to learn morse as a boy at the feet of Edwin Armstrong, and how all those POWs were able to keep their spirits up by banging code out on the pipes, etc. This will generate a new round of debade in usenet and eham.net.
Meanwhile, more kids will miss out on learning about electronics, thinking a radical case mod makes them an engineer. More spectrum will be sold off to private parties, or rendered useless due to broken technology that has no practical use.
Cable companies don't pay a dividend. Their stock price is based on growth. Cable companies are getting their clock cleaned by the DBS industry in terms of growth at the cable company's expense, at least with television service. High Speed Internet service is another story, but most urban and suburban areas are quickly becoming mature. Cable has learned that they won't be able to compete with DBS using old cable systems and a few analog channels. High speed Internet access makes it much easer get and keep customers. If it isn't available in a system, they can't sell it, so it is in their best interest to get internet available.
Also, there is a lot of equipment that is being moved out of the mature urban/suburban systems as they are being upgraded to handle more capicity. It can be reused in the rural areas easily for the cost of installation and configuration (cheap).
Finally, the Cable company I work for has been building a nationwide 10Gbps backbone. It runs right through our rural cable system, just like the big metro systems. Sure, we're not making a dent in it, but it makes me feel a little better about our prospects of being able to compete with DBS and DSL (it will carry HDTV, video on demand and VOIP as well as Internet traffic).
If the ILECs have figured it out, they'll abandon the dividend and use that money to build out their networks (much like Verizon, but they still pay a dividend). If not, they will die off.
broadband-over-powerline solution that'll kill hamradio and bleed over most shortwave communications...
Ok, I'm off topic, but the FCC approved BPL because the power companies promised to not use any part of the SW bands that cause interference. Just give 'em a call, and they'll move off frequency. Just like they fixed that noisy transformer next to my place (NOT!).
Most of the cost of providing service is the upkeep of the physical property. There really is no rule keeping someone from stringing cables on the poles, as long as they pay rent to the pole owner. They'll have to get permission to access the right of way as well, which will require payment to some government or PUC, but your money spends the same as the cable company's so they don't care as long as you don't trash the place.
Of course, all that construction is hard and requires a lot of startup capital. It is much cheaper to change the rules for the existing players. Remember, at one time, there were thousands of miles of telegraph lines. I don't think (but I could be wrong) that the phone companies made Western Union open up their lines!
Not really. Light can be amplitude modulated, frequency modulated, or digitally modulated (CW). Broadband was a term stolen by AT&T marketing types before they destroyed the cable industry. It used to be a term to describe antennas (a broadbanded antenna has a low SWR across the transmission band).
Average hours wasted per person, per day, were highest in the insurance industry...
Not really all that suprising (I would have thought health care administration). The less tangable the product, the more room for bloat in the back office. My health insurance and auto insurance have skyrocketed in the past few years, even though I haven't been sick enough to file a claim, and haven't had a wreck in about 15 years. Meanwhile, the insurance companies keep saying they are loosing more money all the time, for largely unprovable reasons.
Every time I have to deal with a PC problem at work, I just can't help but think that the IT department either gave up on getting users to learn anything about PCs, or they just like having complete power over the great unwashed who just use computers (my opinion changes from day to day). The sad thing is MS just feeds this demand for central contol in the workplace, but in a random way. The best example is the fact that I cannot set my clock, which is usually off by a minute or more, but if IT wants to do an upgrade they have to blast out emails telling users not to turn off their PCs on date X.
This seems to be the best solution for the office of the future, at least for as long as people don't know anything about computers. It's a good thing people don't drive as bad as they use computers... Oh, nevermind.
The Real Problem With Internet Security
on
Examining ICMP Flaws
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
From the article: On the other hand, if it were true, then it would mean that Cisco takes about two years to address these issues. I would be concerned about this if I were one of their customers.
This is the biggest problem with large companies. Sure, it is has been pointed out adnausium over the years in various sources -The Mythical Man Month and The Innovators Dilemma being two very good ones. It is too bad that our network is now being ruled by bandits because of it. MS has become everything that it hated about IBM. Cisco has so much hardware out there that IOS has to be tested on everything before a new release. How can it be possible that when FOSS gets updated and corrected quicker? Of course, I work for a large company, and I see how long it takes to get a simple task completed. I'm guessing it has a lot to do with modivation. The open source folks really do believe in their product. For the people working in big companies, it is just a paycheck.
No damn rhyme or reason behind what requires admin access and what doesn't. Sure, adding Office or Baldurs Gate should require admin, changing screen resolution? Hell no. Half the spyware normal users get uses privledge escalation holes anyway so it does not keep that crap down.
Yep. Can't set the clock, but I can shut down the system!
Verizion has a history of making sure things work very well in Washington DC. I guess this is to convince the.gov that they are serving the public intrest. When I can get it in rural CO with the same speed you see (and remember, I pay more for my cell service due to a "High Cost Fund Surcharge"), I'll be impressed.
I just want to make a phone call in downtown Winterpark.
You haven't booted XP in a while, have you? Every service pack seems to make the boot up process longer and longer. Even my somewhat pristine company provided laptop takes much longer than I would like.
I was just thinking about what it might take to have an 802.11b mouse. Let's assume you don't want a TCP/IP stack on the mouse, due to cost. All you'd have to do is develop a protocol and bind it to the 802.11b interface. Autodiscovery may be difficult, but not impossible, if you have a MAC broadcast from the mouse and tie it into the PC somehow.
However, I doubt it would work with a TCP/IP stack without static IP addresses. Since most NICs only allow 1 IP address at a time (at least with Windows), DHCP wouldn't happen, so it would be worthless on the road.
They wern't that great. The great thing about them is that they came with Basic. Never going back to that 40 column display, junky sound, and summersaults to get more than 16 colors on the screen at a time (at least with the Atari and VBI switching).
Some folks have pointed out that they are running MS windows. It might be CE, which is a little less prone to crashing, but I doubt you'll see a 10 year lifespan on these things without major upgrades. Since it is somewhat new hardware, I doubt that it will be open, like an ATX motherboard, but I could be wrong. Anyone have any specs on these things -the website didn't look too detailed.
"So, does this mean that R2-D2 is really the main character in Star Wars?"
According to the commentary tracks (and several interviews), when Lucas was writing the treatment, he thought of the main characters as the two 'droids. Everyone else was just someone for them to interact with.
Slashdot Mirror
Another fun fact: it is the universal station ID. No matter what mode you operate (AM, FM, PSK, etc) you can always ID with morse code. I think that's the only real benefit to learning it. However most of the IDers on repeater controlers are set to ludicrous speed, so good luck getting the ID with your 5wpm profeciency.
That seems to be the ARRL's attitude, since they just about demanded the FCC maintain the code requirement. The prunes are right next to the honeymush.
I guess you must be much smarter than I am, and most of the hams I've been talking to. I'm having a terrible time learning morse. I set a goal of having it down by a hamfest in Sepember, and I hope I can make it. I think it stinks that I can get all the theory, build circuits, program PCs, and fix just about anything, but I can't transmit below 50MHz because I can't seem to learn a 150 year old communications method.
Most hams seem to take the attitude of "I had to learn it, I'm glad I did, but I don't use it" when it comes to code. If my current difficulty learning code continues, I really doubt I'll use it, unless my life depends on it (which, since no one else will be able to understand, will be a useless excercise). Too many bad memories.
Of course, the pro-code group will start slamming the FCC with form letters DEMANDING they keep the morse code requirement (and getting rid of all the fornecation and cussin' on the broadcast stations while they're at it). Since most of the people who don't want the code requirement aren't all that militant, the FCC will cave. As usual the ARRL will editorialize in QST about how great it was to learn morse as a boy at the feet of Edwin Armstrong, and how all those POWs were able to keep their spirits up by banging code out on the pipes, etc. This will generate a new round of debade in usenet and eham.net.
Meanwhile, more kids will miss out on learning about electronics, thinking a radical case mod makes them an engineer. More spectrum will be sold off to private parties, or rendered useless due to broken technology that has no practical use.
Also, there is a lot of equipment that is being moved out of the mature urban/suburban systems as they are being upgraded to handle more capicity. It can be reused in the rural areas easily for the cost of installation and configuration (cheap).
Finally, the Cable company I work for has been building a nationwide 10Gbps backbone. It runs right through our rural cable system, just like the big metro systems. Sure, we're not making a dent in it, but it makes me feel a little better about our prospects of being able to compete with DBS and DSL (it will carry HDTV, video on demand and VOIP as well as Internet traffic).
If the ILECs have figured it out, they'll abandon the dividend and use that money to build out their networks (much like Verizon, but they still pay a dividend). If not, they will die off.
Ok, I'm off topic, but the FCC approved BPL because the power companies promised to not use any part of the SW bands that cause interference. Just give 'em a call, and they'll move off frequency. Just like they fixed that noisy transformer next to my place (NOT!).
Of course, all that construction is hard and requires a lot of startup capital. It is much cheaper to change the rules for the existing players. Remember, at one time, there were thousands of miles of telegraph lines. I don't think (but I could be wrong) that the phone companies made Western Union open up their lines!
Typically, the FCC lumps DBS service in with cable. After all, CNN is CABLE News Network, but you can get it on DirectTV.
Sure. It gets politicians something they can show to their upscale voters.
Not really. Light can be amplitude modulated, frequency modulated, or digitally modulated (CW). Broadband was a term stolen by AT&T marketing types before they destroyed the cable industry. It used to be a term to describe antennas (a broadbanded antenna has a low SWR across the transmission band).
Not really all that suprising (I would have thought health care administration). The less tangable the product, the more room for bloat in the back office. My health insurance and auto insurance have skyrocketed in the past few years, even though I haven't been sick enough to file a claim, and haven't had a wreck in about 15 years. Meanwhile, the insurance companies keep saying they are loosing more money all the time, for largely unprovable reasons.
This seems to be the best solution for the office of the future, at least for as long as people don't know anything about computers. It's a good thing people don't drive as bad as they use computers... Oh, nevermind.
The amazing thing is they get all this law enforcement mostly for free: http://www.cbpp.org/10-16-03tax.htm
This is the biggest problem with large companies. Sure, it is has been pointed out adnausium over the years in various sources -The Mythical Man Month and The Innovators Dilemma being two very good ones. It is too bad that our network is now being ruled by bandits because of it. MS has become everything that it hated about IBM. Cisco has so much hardware out there that IOS has to be tested on everything before a new release. How can it be possible that when FOSS gets updated and corrected quicker? Of course, I work for a large company, and I see how long it takes to get a simple task completed. I'm guessing it has a lot to do with modivation. The open source folks really do believe in their product. For the people working in big companies, it is just a paycheck.
Of course, there's always this possibility
Waaah.
Yep. Can't set the clock, but I can shut down the system!
I just want to make a phone call in downtown Winterpark.
Is due to articles like this one.
You haven't booted XP in a while, have you? Every service pack seems to make the boot up process longer and longer. Even my somewhat pristine company provided laptop takes much longer than I would like.
-H. Simpson
Supervising Technician (Safety)
Springfield Nuclear Power Generating Facility
Springfield, KY
However, I doubt it would work with a TCP/IP stack without static IP addresses. Since most NICs only allow 1 IP address at a time (at least with Windows), DHCP wouldn't happen, so it would be worthless on the road.
Not to mention the bandwidth requirements.
They wern't that great. The great thing about them is that they came with Basic. Never going back to that 40 column display, junky sound, and summersaults to get more than 16 colors on the screen at a time (at least with the Atari and VBI switching).
No, but the boss gets the credit, the marketing guys get the budget, and the sales guys make all the money. Techies get all the toys
Welcome to Dick Chaney's America!
According to the commentary tracks (and several interviews), when Lucas was writing the treatment, he thought of the main characters as the two 'droids. Everyone else was just someone for them to interact with.