It seems like a lifetime ago, but I guess it was only about 11 or so years ago, I worked for a wireless engineering consultant firm in Arlington, VA. Among our many projects, one of the biggest during my time there was designing and building out the first Sprint PCS systems in DC, Seattle, and Portland.
We didn't own the vans we did drive testing in (the process of checking the signal by driving around with special equipment and software). We rented them. That was fun. We'd rent a nice brand new minivan from Budget or some car rental place and the first thing we'd do is rip out the dash board so we could run power cables to the alternator (I assume that's where they were plugging in. I dealt more with the software side).
In addition to some fairly expensive equipment, some of which our company designed, we also had specially modded PCS phones that, with a serial cable, would provide signal strength and other information to the computers.
We'd have maybe 3 or 4 laptops, each with a phone and GPS attached, and then we'd just go cruising around town recording signal strength, intereference measurements, and so on.
And if it wasn't just plain old geeky fun, the young engineers involved were simply a great group of people and we had a blast doing it together. And somehow we usually managed to get the minivans put back together well enough that we never got sued.
Thanks for the memories. I haven't thought about the old drive testing days in quite some time.
What would you, the Slashdot community, do to make it big on your own using the Internet?
Well, first of all, I'd be realistic and realize that out of the tens of thousands of bands, only a handful "make it big." And by make it big, I mean make any real money. A first hit record usually won't make you much more money than a mediocre full-time job. There are a few bands and artists that have a series of hit albums and they start to make real money off of those albums, but they make the really big money off of shows.
But be realistic and assume you're not going to be one of the really big bands. If that's the case, you can expect to make a moderate living, assuming you're really good and popular locally, playing gigs. You can release your music for free on the internet in the hopes that it creates more demands for your gigs.
But here's the thing about the record industry. They invest a good deal of money in trying to make the huge bands/artists. They make a killing off of those people and some of those people make a killing as well. They make excellent money off of the one hit bands/artists as well, but those people usually don't make very good money. The smart ones in the latter group can sometimes parley it into acting jobs, bigger tours, or some other music-related business that makes them a pretty decent living. But in general, the people getting rich are the labels and that handful of artists.
...so for all we know, we might be the advanced civilization.
And my point is that, statistically speaking, that's about a 1 in a billion chance if we actually do contact an alien civilization. The chances, statistically speaking, almost guarantee that they're ahead of us because we're at the "infant" stage of communicating beyond our planet.
My only comment on that screenshot is that Bryan has too much time on his hands if he can write a 65k Word document on "Bathroom Ideas". But I do look forward to his upcoming bestseller, "Pantry Ideas"
Also, your argument that "they've had the same time to appear, evolve and construct civilization that we did" is faulty as well. It's unlikely that the planet they were evolved on came into being or began to support life at exactly the same time as Earth. Single celled life existed for 2-3 billion years before multi-celled life forms came into being. Multi-celled life has only been around for a few hundred million years. So when you're talking about an evolution of a few billion years, a single event that could speed things up or slow them down by a mere 400 years would make a HUGE difference in terms of technological difference.
For example, what if the "dark ages" never happened? That was a few hundred years of science being heresy. What if science had actually advanced significantly in that period instead? We might be significantly more technologically advanced now.
So a small difference on the geological scale can be a HUGE difference on the technological scale.
It's a matter of probability. Let's say we've been transmitting 50 years. Let's say that we will continue to be around and technologically advanced enough to do so for say, another 1000 years (though, chances are, if we make it 1000, we'll make it a lot more than that).
Then the chances of an anyone else catching us in the first 50 years of our ability to transmit are 50/1000 or 5%.
There's a 50% chance that we'd be at least 500 years more advanced than them.
Now do it from an alien civilization's point of view. Let's say they survive their technology for 1 million years after they first transmit. The chances of us catching them in their first 50 years are 50/1000000. or.005%.
You're right, we don't know for sure, but probability says that if we find an alien civilization, then chances are they will be far ahead of us. There is a very small chance that they will be at the same level as us, but that's very, very unlikely. You also have to take into consideration how far away they are. If there more than 50 light years away, then by default, they've been transmitting at least 50 years.
But people have discussed these probabilities in terms of alien civilization long before I brought them up, and anyone really familiar with the subject is well aware of this.
His theory has a LOT of problems with it. First, keep in mind the following. If we find an alien race that at least as advanced as us, chances are, they're WAY ahead of us. This is a matter of probability, but we've only been transmitting for a few decades of our entire history and chances are any aliens out there have been doing it for, at the very least, thousands if not millions of years.
So, if you take the assumption that they're at least a few decades ahead of us, which is about 99.9999%, then they're going to have no problem deciphering patterns of numbers, as long as they're given some mathematical context within which to frame those patterns. That means raster images will be pretty simple for them to figure out. My guess is that they could feed it into some sort of uber-computer that would analyze the data and spit out an image (or a representation of the image) using whatever their sensory system is adapted to, sound, smell, visual, whatever.
Next, his AI computer idea is simply ridiculous. Again, you have to assume they're way ahead of us technologically. Any encryption we're likely to use to "protect" the data will likely be broken within a matter of seconds by them. Any programs we right will certainly be analyzed before they actually run them and they'll be able to get around any sort of software protection mechanisms we try to put in place.
Think about it. Take any program from 20 years ago. Is there any program from 20 years ago that some competent hacker today couldn't compromise within a matter of minutes, maybe hours? You think someone a few million years ahead of us is going to have any problem compromising our current encryption?
The only way to communicate with them is simply open communications. You start by providing a mathematical and logical basis and build from there. This guy may be a genius, but he doesn't seem to really understand the issues here and I'm no expert, but these are very obvious flaws.
I think you meant to say that they are 'allegedly' enemy combatants.
No, you are not 'allegedly' and enemy combatant. If George Bush says you are an enemy combatant, that becomes your status and you are stripped of all rights as a U.S. Citizen. At least that's the way it was. As someone else has pointed out, the government lost a ruling in this arena, fortunately.
Apparently I was wrong about where Padillo and Hamdi were kept. I had forgotten Hamdi was deported and gave up his citizenship.
I thought the only American Citizens there were military
You are misinformed. Jose Padilla, born in New York, raised in Chicago, is an enemy combatant. Yaser Hamdi, born in Louisiana, is an enemy combatant. Both were being detained in Guantanamo Bay last I heard.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe the suing of illegal file sharers and, in particular, the suing of Sharman networks, may not be a good thing.
Follow my logic here, and in particular, I'm going to concentrate on Sharman networks, but the same also sort of applies to anyone accused of sharing files.
Sharman is basically being sued for providing the means by which people are illegally trading files. Thus, Sharman is likely going to be held legally liable for the actions of its users. In the same way that if I make files available on my machine and you download them illegally, I am really being held liable for your illegal actions.
Now why is this a good thing? Well, IANAL, but it seems to me this opens a terrific can of worms for other industries. By the same analogy, can we not now make gun companies legally liable for gun related deaths? Can we not make cigarette companies legally liable for smoking related deaths? I mean, really, it's the same thing isn't it? Holding the product supplier responsible for the actions of its users?
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing these two industries sued out of business. So, if some clever lawyer can make the coming precedents cross over into these industries and form the basis for some really major class action lawsuits, I might not see all of this as such a bad thing. I mean after all, why should big business have it both ways. Producers liable when it's in their interests and consumers reliable when it's in their interests. Surely we have to decide, as a society who's actually responsible. Either way, the consumers win, I think. Either sharing files (but not downloading them) becomes legal or cigarette and gun manufacturers are liable and thus pretty much out of business.
We're still in the very early stages of spaceflight. It's still dangerous, and it will continue to be dangerous for decades to come. And debris in orbit is only a small factor. The Challenger wasn't hit by debris in space. Neither was Columbia for that matter. Should we stop going into space because of some debris? No. Should we stop going because of the other dangers? I'll tell you what, if we come to a point where the astronauts who are risking their lives, decide it's too dangerous, then I'll start to listen. After all, they're more acquainted with the exact nature of the dangers they face than any civilian or politician (John Glenn excepted).
You want to talk dangerous, go be a soldier in Iraq. That's dangerous. Why don't we outlaw wars, particularly unjustified, needless ones.
And while we're on the topic of dangerous, let's talk about automobiles? They're not a great deal safer than the space shuttle.. Why don't we actually make driving tests difficult in the U.S. and outlaw people who can't drive? That will really save lives.
Space flight is certainly not going to get safer if we stop doing it. The only way to improve is to just continue doing it and making improvements as we learn. Will some astronauts die? Of course. And they know that. It's the risk they signed up for. Why not let them be the ones to decide whether or not it's worth it.
Maybe AOL is feeling the heat from alternatives such as Gaim and Adium.
You must be kidding! I mean Gaim is great and all, but AOL and AIM have at least 4 orders of magnitude more users than Gaim and Adium combined. I doubt they're feeling a great deal of heat.
Additionally, There's absolutely nothing that says a BIOS has to follow a standard. A custom BIOS that supports a custom OS is still a BIOS. It might be incompatible with every OS on the market, but it can still be a BIOS. BIOS simply stands for Basic Input Output System.
That's like saying "this bicycle replaces your car, therefore this bicycle is actually a car." BIOS (formally, the PC CBIOS) isn't just an arbitrary piece of firmware, it's an interface standard, and a fairly complex one at that.
I take exception to your completely inaccurate comparison. LinuxBIOS supports most of the basic interrupts supported by the standard PC BIOSes. So it is, in fact, a BIOS since it supports these low level calls that a standard BIOS supports. So, calling it a "bike" instead of a "car" isn't very accurate at all. The fact that it will support other OSes which rely on these underlying interrupts just goes to prove my point.
LinuxBIOS is not a BIOS, it's a non-standard firmware interface.
Not exactly. It's actually a BIOS. It replaces your PC BIOS. And last I checeked, it could boot and run Windows 2000, Linux and OpenBSD. It's not as standardized as other BIOSes, but it's still a well functioning BIOS.
With how much Linux websites are hacked these days -- see http://zone-h.org/ [zone-h.org] and check out the statistics section, at least 70-80% of website hacks are Linux based
Without being able to state what % of that market Linux is, your percentages mean nothing. For example, if Linux is 70-80% of that market, then it would say that they're all pretty equally hackable. I'm not saying they are equally hackable, I'm just saying your statistics don't provide any reference by which to measure.
He doesn't know the first thing about what he's saying!
# Linux as a task under Windows exists!
# Linux as a task under Linux exists.
# In either instance, the "guest" OS doesn't get a "magic ride" on the hosts's drivers.
I suspect you didn't actually READ beyond the first paragraph of the article (either that, or you just didn't understand it) nor did any of the people that modded you up.
His comment about running Linux as a task was not his topic, it was simply pointing out an existing project. What he IS talking about is replacing the Linux driver interface with a Windows compatible driver interface that basically allows Linux to use MS drivers. I can't really comment on the feasibility of this, but this is a far cry from running Linux as a task.
Like every 5th word in the press release is "nanotechnology." Back in the day, when you mixed a bunch of chemicals up in a lab, it was called "Chemistry". Does anyone else smell a new dot bomb cycle coming? Are venture capitalists going to start pouring their money in every company with "nanotechnology" in their name? Guess I should wait a few weeks and start selling short.
There are a number of issues that make linux a better bet for robotics. The hardware is singificantly more accessible in Linux. Writing hardware drivers is a pain in the ass in any OS, but doing them for Windows is just hell.
On top of which, Linux just responds better in a real-time environment. Windows has too much crap going on in the background that you just can't control. With Linux, it's much easier to pare down the OS to the bare essentials. And then there's the issue of price...
Slashdot Mirror
It seems like a lifetime ago, but I guess it was only about 11 or so years ago, I worked for a wireless engineering consultant firm in Arlington, VA. Among our many projects, one of the biggest during my time there was designing and building out the first Sprint PCS systems in DC, Seattle, and Portland.
We didn't own the vans we did drive testing in (the process of checking the signal by driving around with special equipment and software). We rented them. That was fun. We'd rent a nice brand new minivan from Budget or some car rental place and the first thing we'd do is rip out the dash board so we could run power cables to the alternator (I assume that's where they were plugging in. I dealt more with the software side).
In addition to some fairly expensive equipment, some of which our company designed, we also had specially modded PCS phones that, with a serial cable, would provide signal strength and other information to the computers.
We'd have maybe 3 or 4 laptops, each with a phone and GPS attached, and then we'd just go cruising around town recording signal strength, intereference measurements, and so on.
And if it wasn't just plain old geeky fun, the young engineers involved were simply a great group of people and we had a blast doing it together. And somehow we usually managed to get the minivans put back together well enough that we never got sued.
Thanks for the memories. I haven't thought about the old drive testing days in quite some time.
Ah, thanks for clarifying. I thought it was Blue Jeans.
What would you, the Slashdot community, do to make it big on your own using the Internet?
Well, first of all, I'd be realistic and realize that out of the tens of thousands of bands, only a handful "make it big." And by make it big, I mean make any real money. A first hit record usually won't make you much more money than a mediocre full-time job. There are a few bands and artists that have a series of hit albums and they start to make real money off of those albums, but they make the really big money off of shows.
But be realistic and assume you're not going to be one of the really big bands. If that's the case, you can expect to make a moderate living, assuming you're really good and popular locally, playing gigs. You can release your music for free on the internet in the hopes that it creates more demands for your gigs.
But here's the thing about the record industry. They invest a good deal of money in trying to make the huge bands/artists. They make a killing off of those people and some of those people make a killing as well. They make excellent money off of the one hit bands/artists as well, but those people usually don't make very good money. The smart ones in the latter group can sometimes parley it into acting jobs, bigger tours, or some other music-related business that makes them a pretty decent living. But in general, the people getting rich are the labels and that handful of artists.
...so for all we know, we might be the advanced civilization.
And my point is that, statistically speaking, that's about a 1 in a billion chance if we actually do contact an alien civilization. The chances, statistically speaking, almost guarantee that they're ahead of us because we're at the "infant" stage of communicating beyond our planet.
My only comment on that screenshot is that Bryan has too much time on his hands if he can write a 65k Word document on "Bathroom Ideas". But I do look forward to his upcoming bestseller, "Pantry Ideas"
Also, your argument that "they've had the same time to appear, evolve and construct civilization that we did" is faulty as well. It's unlikely that the planet they were evolved on came into being or began to support life at exactly the same time as Earth. Single celled life existed for 2-3 billion years before multi-celled life forms came into being. Multi-celled life has only been around for a few hundred million years. So when you're talking about an evolution of a few billion years, a single event that could speed things up or slow them down by a mere 400 years would make a HUGE difference in terms of technological difference.
For example, what if the "dark ages" never happened? That was a few hundred years of science being heresy. What if science had actually advanced significantly in that period instead? We might be significantly more technologically advanced now.
So a small difference on the geological scale can be a HUGE difference on the technological scale.
It's a matter of probability. Let's say we've been transmitting 50 years. Let's say that we will continue to be around and technologically advanced enough to do so for say, another 1000 years (though, chances are, if we make it 1000, we'll make it a lot more than that).
.005%.
Then the chances of an anyone else catching us in the first 50 years of our ability to transmit are 50/1000 or 5%.
There's a 50% chance that we'd be at least 500 years more advanced than them.
Now do it from an alien civilization's point of view. Let's say they survive their technology for 1 million years after they first transmit. The chances of us catching them in their first 50 years are 50/1000000. or
You're right, we don't know for sure, but probability says that if we find an alien civilization, then chances are they will be far ahead of us. There is a very small chance that they will be at the same level as us, but that's very, very unlikely. You also have to take into consideration how far away they are. If there more than 50 light years away, then by default, they've been transmitting at least 50 years.
But people have discussed these probabilities in terms of alien civilization long before I brought them up, and anyone really familiar with the subject is well aware of this.
His theory has a LOT of problems with it. First, keep in mind the following. If we find an alien race that at least as advanced as us, chances are, they're WAY ahead of us. This is a matter of probability, but we've only been transmitting for a few decades of our entire history and chances are any aliens out there have been doing it for, at the very least, thousands if not millions of years.
So, if you take the assumption that they're at least a few decades ahead of us, which is about 99.9999%, then they're going to have no problem deciphering patterns of numbers, as long as they're given some mathematical context within which to frame those patterns. That means raster images will be pretty simple for them to figure out. My guess is that they could feed it into some sort of uber-computer that would analyze the data and spit out an image (or a representation of the image) using whatever their sensory system is adapted to, sound, smell, visual, whatever.
Next, his AI computer idea is simply ridiculous. Again, you have to assume they're way ahead of us technologically. Any encryption we're likely to use to "protect" the data will likely be broken within a matter of seconds by them. Any programs we right will certainly be analyzed before they actually run them and they'll be able to get around any sort of software protection mechanisms we try to put in place.
Think about it. Take any program from 20 years ago. Is there any program from 20 years ago that some competent hacker today couldn't compromise within a matter of minutes, maybe hours? You think someone a few million years ahead of us is going to have any problem compromising our current encryption?
The only way to communicate with them is simply open communications. You start by providing a mathematical and logical basis and build from there. This guy may be a genius, but he doesn't seem to really understand the issues here and I'm no expert, but these are very obvious flaws.
I think you meant to say that they are 'allegedly' enemy combatants.
No, you are not 'allegedly' and enemy combatant. If George Bush says you are an enemy combatant, that becomes your status and you are stripped of all rights as a U.S. Citizen. At least that's the way it was. As someone else has pointed out, the government lost a ruling in this arena, fortunately.
Apparently I was wrong about where Padillo and Hamdi were kept. I had forgotten Hamdi was deported and gave up his citizenship.
I thought the only American Citizens there were military
You are misinformed. Jose Padilla, born in New York, raised in Chicago, is an enemy combatant. Yaser Hamdi, born in Louisiana, is an enemy combatant. Both were being detained in Guantanamo Bay last I heard.
I'm starting to wonder if maybe the suing of illegal file sharers and, in particular, the suing of Sharman networks, may not be a good thing.
Follow my logic here, and in particular, I'm going to concentrate on Sharman networks, but the same also sort of applies to anyone accused of sharing files.
Sharman is basically being sued for providing the means by which people are illegally trading files. Thus, Sharman is likely going to be held legally liable for the actions of its users. In the same way that if I make files available on my machine and you download them illegally, I am really being held liable for your illegal actions.
Now why is this a good thing? Well, IANAL, but it seems to me this opens a terrific can of worms for other industries. By the same analogy, can we not now make gun companies legally liable for gun related deaths? Can we not make cigarette companies legally liable for smoking related deaths? I mean, really, it's the same thing isn't it? Holding the product supplier responsible for the actions of its users?
I certainly wouldn't mind seeing these two industries sued out of business. So, if some clever lawyer can make the coming precedents cross over into these industries and form the basis for some really major class action lawsuits, I might not see all of this as such a bad thing. I mean after all, why should big business have it both ways. Producers liable when it's in their interests and consumers reliable when it's in their interests. Surely we have to decide, as a society who's actually responsible. Either way, the consumers win, I think. Either sharing files (but not downloading them) becomes legal or cigarette and gun manufacturers are liable and thus pretty much out of business.
I'm tired of corporations and government thinking society exists for the sole purpose of ensure their profit.
Welcome to the 21st century. What did you think society existed for if not to ensure their profit?
We're still in the very early stages of spaceflight. It's still dangerous, and it will continue to be dangerous for decades to come. And debris in orbit is only a small factor. The Challenger wasn't hit by debris in space. Neither was Columbia for that matter. Should we stop going into space because of some debris? No. Should we stop going because of the other dangers? I'll tell you what, if we come to a point where the astronauts who are risking their lives, decide it's too dangerous, then I'll start to listen. After all, they're more acquainted with the exact nature of the dangers they face than any civilian or politician (John Glenn excepted).
You want to talk dangerous, go be a soldier in Iraq. That's dangerous. Why don't we outlaw wars, particularly unjustified, needless ones.
And while we're on the topic of dangerous, let's talk about automobiles? They're not a great deal safer than the space shuttle.. Why don't we actually make driving tests difficult in the U.S. and outlaw people who can't drive? That will really save lives.
Space flight is certainly not going to get safer if we stop doing it. The only way to improve is to just continue doing it and making improvements as we learn. Will some astronauts die? Of course. And they know that. It's the risk they signed up for. Why not let them be the ones to decide whether or not it's worth it.
Maybe AOL is feeling the heat from alternatives such as Gaim and Adium.
You must be kidding! I mean Gaim is great and all, but AOL and AIM have at least 4 orders of magnitude more users than Gaim and Adium combined. I doubt they're feeling a great deal of heat.
Additionally, There's absolutely nothing that says a BIOS has to follow a standard. A custom BIOS that supports a custom OS is still a BIOS. It might be incompatible with every OS on the market, but it can still be a BIOS. BIOS simply stands for Basic Input Output System.
That's like saying "this bicycle replaces your car, therefore this bicycle is actually a car." BIOS (formally, the PC CBIOS) isn't just an arbitrary piece of firmware, it's an interface standard, and a fairly complex one at that.
I take exception to your completely inaccurate comparison. LinuxBIOS supports most of the basic interrupts supported by the standard PC BIOSes. So it is, in fact, a BIOS since it supports these low level calls that a standard BIOS supports. So, calling it a "bike" instead of a "car" isn't very accurate at all. The fact that it will support other OSes which rely on these underlying interrupts just goes to prove my point.
LinuxBIOS is not a BIOS, it's a non-standard firmware interface.
Not exactly. It's actually a BIOS. It replaces your PC BIOS. And last I checeked, it could boot and run Windows 2000, Linux and OpenBSD. It's not as standardized as other BIOSes, but it's still a well functioning BIOS.
With how much Linux websites are hacked these days -- see http://zone-h.org/ [zone-h.org] and check out the statistics section, at least 70-80% of website hacks are Linux based
Without being able to state what % of that market Linux is, your percentages mean nothing. For example, if Linux is 70-80% of that market, then it would say that they're all pretty equally hackable. I'm not saying they are equally hackable, I'm just saying your statistics don't provide any reference by which to measure.
Man, I was confused. I thought a kilogram WAS based on a natural phenomenon. I thought it was how much coke Tony Montana could inhale in 1 sitting.
He doesn't know the first thing about what he's saying!
# Linux as a task under Windows exists!
# Linux as a task under Linux exists.
# In either instance, the "guest" OS doesn't get a "magic ride" on the hosts's drivers.
I suspect you didn't actually READ beyond the first paragraph of the article (either that, or you just didn't understand it) nor did any of the people that modded you up.
His comment about running Linux as a task was not his topic, it was simply pointing out an existing project. What he IS talking about is replacing the Linux driver interface with a Windows compatible driver interface that basically allows Linux to use MS drivers. I can't really comment on the feasibility of this, but this is a far cry from running Linux as a task.
Like every 5th word in the press release is "nanotechnology." Back in the day, when you mixed a bunch of chemicals up in a lab, it was called "Chemistry". Does anyone else smell a new dot bomb cycle coming? Are venture capitalists going to start pouring their money in every company with "nanotechnology" in their name? Guess I should wait a few weeks and start selling short.
There are a number of issues that make linux a better bet for robotics. The hardware is singificantly more accessible in Linux. Writing hardware drivers is a pain in the ass in any OS, but doing them for Windows is just hell.
On top of which, Linux just responds better in a real-time environment. Windows has too much crap going on in the background that you just can't control. With Linux, it's much easier to pare down the OS to the bare essentials. And then there's the issue of price...
Jesus, nobody can take a joke on this site anymore. That's just sad.
When given pen and paper, it wrote down:
"Developers, developers, developers!!!!"
When given a typewriter it wrote the entire works of Shakespeare.
The thing is, its too damn hard, too damn difficult, and there is not enough documentation and configuration too;s for LDAP out there.
Did you ever consider the possibility that maybe you're just not cut out for LDAP? Maybe pottery is more your speed.