Uhm, go back and RTFA. No Halon system is used, a standard water sprinkler system is used. However, the one failsafe noted was that a smoke detector also had to activate in addtion to the heat fusible link in the sprinkler heads before torrents of water were released. So, you need both an indication of smoke AND excessive heat for things to start getting wet.
It's just another long-standing technology being talked up as the big players get in on the action. I have Etrade Bank as one of my banks. I could do essentially all of the normal transactions on my handset (i.e. transfers, bill pay, trades, cut and mail checks, etc.) back in 2000. This was through Spint PCS, using their Vision internet service, on a web enabled handset (NOT a smart phone). This was back in the days when the handset displays were monochrome and essentially graphic-free. One small wonder was that despite the crude interface (at the time), the handset supported 128 bit SSL and sent/received the data using it when accessing secure sites (A letter "P" would be displayed on the top, next to the other handset icons).
Really, this isn't anything new. It's just being passed as news as the big banks now realize that enough of their market base is technologically adept and accepting of having this kind of banking access available that it is advantageous for them to offer it.
As for the security, it's essentially as secure as doing banking online and arguably more secure than using a public WiFi connection. Its biggest security weakness, like everything else, is the human operator.
You are likely thinking of television broadcasting. The FCC has slated February 17, 2009, though considering that the deadline had been pushed back several times previously, it would not surprise me if this gets pushed out again.
In band on channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcasting is already emerging in the larger markets. Basically, you can get a digital receiver and listen to your favorite radio station play all its programming, commercials and all, in CD quality audio. The only cost is the receiver. At this point, there is no firm date for phasing out FM (or AM) radio as we know it, just the addition of digital IBOC, which are usually simulcasts of the analog programming.
(the presentation also mentions 100mW on one of the "background" slides).
Based on that, I'd say the answer to your question is "none whatsoever".
Exactly.
What people are not understanding is that there is a BIG difference between peak envelope power (PEP) and effective radiated power (ERP). Bigger antennas and stacked arrays allow you get uber amounts of gain in signal. Instead of cranking the power output up, you focus it instead. Basically it's like adding more lenses and mirrors to an optical system to get an ever increasing focused beam of light from an incoherent light source (i.e. light bulb).
So, instead of spraying 100mW in an essentially omnidirectional pattern like the little rubber antennas on the back of your wireless router do, they focused it as much as possible towards the other end of the link. The optical analogy here is a lighthouse with its huge fresnel lens. A moddest light behind such a lens looks quite bright from several miles away as result.
Then, with essentially nothing in the way, the only loses left to contend with are atmospheric absorbtion and scattering. Get up into that higher altitude air that has less water vapor and dust and you've got even less atmospheric loss working in your favor.
Farm direct to Grocery Store? Not likely.
on
Vertical Farming
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· Score: 1
You raise a valid point with the transportation. While the idea focuses on urban production of food, it does leave quite a bit out on the processing of this food. People forget that it is rare for farmed products to end up directly on grocery shelves, even natural and organic products. Most foodstuffs have to go through some type of processing, if not a wholesaler of some kind.
So, some additional questions to raise are:
Will such a building house the appropriate food processing equipment for its output? If it's vegetables, we're talking machinery/personnel to wash, clean, peel, cut vegetables. Then, if it's not destined for fresh sale, there's equipment for canning or freezing.
If there's small livestock involved, then there's meat processing involved, which gets even more intracate. Will the whole myriad of by-products be converted into something useable on site, or will it get shipped off to some other rendering facility?
Specialization usually results in more efficient output, which in turn is more profitable. It would be likely that each structure will focus on only several types of crops, at most, and rotate through these. Certainly, you'd never get far with a store on the ground floor that sold exclusively carrots for a couple of months, then peas for another couple of months, etc. There still would have to be packaging, wholesaling and distribution, but to what extent? The only advantage is that the transport distances, in theory would be less.
Will these structures grow things hydroponically, or are we now going to truck in huge amounts of dirt and soil enhancers on a semiregular basis? Yes, there are bugs, pests and blight out in the open, but there are also a lot of other naturally occuring things that are benefical, if not necessary for crops that would also need to be artificially induced.
I guess I look at this and think of Biosphere II in some respect. It taught us that there's a lot more things to consider besides water and sunlight to keep things somewhat balanced out in order to work properly. Looks like a lot of imagination and creativity on the part of the architectural folks, but a bit light on input from the agricultural and food industry people, at least at this point.
Wells Fargo sends mail to victim with debit cards and CD statement containing SSN.
Thief gets master key to mailboxes and intercepts victims mail
Thief uses information in pilfered mail to steal identity
There really wasn't much she could otherwise do to protect herself in this particular case, other than dropping her bank for their horrible security practices. Heck, her mailbox was even locked, which isn't the case for most mailboxes in this country.
Each of these wireless devices will likely cost several times the length of copper/fiber that they would be replacing. The maintenance costs would be astronomical. Despite semiconductors having a nearly indefinite lifetime, batteries...even the best rechargable ones available, still wear out. Also, what you'd save in a PC by decreasing the cost of copper would also be offset several times by the increasing cost of chip grade silicon, which would be in higher demand to manufacture the electronics for these wireless boxes, including the solar panels used to power them.
Costs aside, the amount of bandwidth that you would need to do this would quickly far exceed the available "open air" bandwidth available to you. Yes, you can shove uber amounts of data in high concentrations through the air using DSS or OFDM, but there's still a limit. Within the confines of a fiber or cable, you can have essentially a whole band of RF spectrum available, and duplicate it again and again in each adjacent run of cable/fiber.
Wireless is great, but it has its place in communications technology. Its uses are nearly limitless, but so are its misuses.
we can certainly determine whether they're in a fully conscious state while they're doing it
Except that I swear that there are quite a few people that aren't in a fully conscious state until after the third cup of coffee. Cool! That means a lot less incoming email until after 10am or so.
Great, so now we can look forward to people unwittingly sending flaming or sexually harrassing emails in their sleep and not know it until they get called on it the next day.
...and for those who do, somebody better setup some clear definitions on where the corporate equipment ends and the privately owned "equipment" begins. Might bring new meaning to the phrase "the company owns my brain."
Then again, we're just talking about controlling computers directly from the mind (i.e. no mechanical interfaces), not directly reading/writing information from the mind...at least not yet.
I suppose that's one possibility. That would make for a lot of scanners in one area puking data at an AP. The article wasn't all that technical, anyway, so it's a matter of speculation on how they would plan to make it work at this point. For all we know, some non-technical type strung together a couple of buzzword technologies to make up this idea without knowing anything about the technical aspects of it. If that were the case, I'm surprised that they didn't find a way to weave nanotechnology into it somehow.
Instead, instal micro cell sites and track using their cell phones. They have a reason to take their cell phone with them (not just a useless tracking tag), you don't have the roll out cost of issuing these tags, and to make this work, you're going to have to put up a heckuva lot of new Wi-Fi APs to do any sort of triangulation, anyway. Why not use cell phone signals on maybe several dozen micro cell sites on campus instead? As a bonus, handled call volume increases and you can get the cell companies to help subsidize the cost...and manage the user database, too.
Then again, why in hell do we really need to monitor student movement so closely in the first place?
Something like this might be useful for monitoring criminals/sex offenders that are on parole, in lieu of GPS. But you're right. It's really only good for someone who has lost their normal level of privacy, either to infirmity or criminal reasons.
Adding to your thought: Unless the device is virtually inseperable from the student, what's to say that it isn't left behind during evacuation, or conversely, the student who doesn't evacuate happened to leave their backpack containing it back in their dorm room for the day?
Implant it or strap it to their ankle...otherwise the error rate in tracking the actual location of the individual becomes pretty high.
So I am gathering that the "brains" on these tags can handle all the handshaking involved with an 802.11(b/g/n) link, including whatever parts of TCP/IP are needed to pass the signal strength data back to the servers? Sounds to me that this is a little bit more involved than just an RFID tag, more like a simple Wi-Fi enabled device that connnects and reports back signal strengths/timing etc. A bit more complex than a chip tied to a small antenna patch (and battery for transmit signal amplification).
It won't replace a personal flotation device, however. Most PFD's provide somewhere between 11 and 22 lbs of buoyancy, depending on their type (type I having the most, though type III being the most common wearable). It'll be nice that it won't be another piece of clothing to weight you down in the water, but don't expect much help from it, either, unless other types of flotation are incorporated into its design.
Attractive Nuisancein the sense of tort law applies to children, and harm done to them by not recognizing the risks and dangers present by the nuisance.
This guy wasn't a minor, and the Wi-Fi from the coffee shop didn't pose/create a dangerous situation. Attractive nuisance doesn't apply in this case.
I do agree with your last statement, however. Secure it or consider it an invitation for others to use it at their own risk.
Well, the rising price of petroleum products is certainly having an impact on the costs involved with producing corn, but it really doesn't affect how much corn is produced (i.e. supply of corn), so the price of corn isn't driven too much by this.
Escalating petroleum costs cut into the farmer's profit margin, increasing demand for corn raises the price of corn.
...that most fertilizers and pesticides applied to corn are derived from petroleum bases. Farming equipment also uses diesel/gasoline during the planting, cultivating and harvesting of corn. Adding to this, natural gas and propane are commonly used to run corn dryers used to reduce the moisture content of the harvested corn. At one point in 2005, the cost of the fuel for these dryers was more than the revenue produced from the corn itself, making it a wash to even bring the corn to market.
Sure, the price of corn is being driven up by its use for ethanol production, but let's not forget that the cost of growing corn has risen sharply as well in recent years, mostly due to the rising price of petroleum based products.
Articles like this are just fodder for the less technically educated masses, and typically written by somebody with a less technical background (afterall, it _is_ coming from Reuters). When they get posted here, the real fun is watching the interpretation, extrapolation and speculation begin on what is really being done from a technical standpoint.
Step 4a. Helicopter makes first pass over motorcade route, jamming signal to trip such devices, then returns to the start to follow motorcade to jam any other devices not programmed to do step 5.
Slashdot Mirror
Uhm, go back and RTFA. No Halon system is used, a standard water sprinkler system is used. However, the one failsafe noted was that a smoke detector also had to activate in addtion to the heat fusible link in the sprinkler heads before torrents of water were released. So, you need both an indication of smoke AND excessive heat for things to start getting wet.
It's just another long-standing technology being talked up as the big players get in on the action. I have Etrade Bank as one of my banks. I could do essentially all of the normal transactions on my handset (i.e. transfers, bill pay, trades, cut and mail checks, etc.) back in 2000. This was through Spint PCS, using their Vision internet service, on a web enabled handset (NOT a smart phone). This was back in the days when the handset displays were monochrome and essentially graphic-free. One small wonder was that despite the crude interface (at the time), the handset supported 128 bit SSL and sent/received the data using it when accessing secure sites (A letter "P" would be displayed on the top, next to the other handset icons).
Really, this isn't anything new. It's just being passed as news as the big banks now realize that enough of their market base is technologically adept and accepting of having this kind of banking access available that it is advantageous for them to offer it.
As for the security, it's essentially as secure as doing banking online and arguably more secure than using a public WiFi connection. Its biggest security weakness, like everything else, is the human operator.
You are likely thinking of television broadcasting. The FCC has slated February 17, 2009, though considering that the deadline had been pushed back several times previously, it would not surprise me if this gets pushed out again.
In band on channel (IBOC) digital radio broadcasting is already emerging in the larger markets. Basically, you can get a digital receiver and listen to your favorite radio station play all its programming, commercials and all, in CD quality audio. The only cost is the receiver. At this point, there is no firm date for phasing out FM (or AM) radio as we know it, just the addition of digital IBOC, which are usually simulcasts of the analog programming.
Based on that, I'd say the answer to your question is "none whatsoever".
Exactly.
What people are not understanding is that there is a BIG difference between peak envelope power (PEP) and effective radiated power (ERP). Bigger antennas and stacked arrays allow you get uber amounts of gain in signal. Instead of cranking the power output up, you focus it instead. Basically it's like adding more lenses and mirrors to an optical system to get an ever increasing focused beam of light from an incoherent light source (i.e. light bulb).
So, instead of spraying 100mW in an essentially omnidirectional pattern like the little rubber antennas on the back of your wireless router do, they focused it as much as possible towards the other end of the link. The optical analogy here is a lighthouse with its huge fresnel lens. A moddest light behind such a lens looks quite bright from several miles away as result.
Then, with essentially nothing in the way, the only loses left to contend with are atmospheric absorbtion and scattering. Get up into that higher altitude air that has less water vapor and dust and you've got even less atmospheric loss working in your favor.
You raise a valid point with the transportation. While the idea focuses on urban production of food, it does leave quite a bit out on the processing of this food. People forget that it is rare for farmed products to end up directly on grocery shelves, even natural and organic products. Most foodstuffs have to go through some type of processing, if not a wholesaler of some kind.
So, some additional questions to raise are:
I guess I look at this and think of Biosphere II in some respect. It taught us that there's a lot more things to consider besides water and sunlight to keep things somewhat balanced out in order to work properly. Looks like a lot of imagination and creativity on the part of the architectural folks, but a bit light on input from the agricultural and food industry people, at least at this point.
Wells Fargo and the U.S. Postal Service....RTFA.
There really wasn't much she could otherwise do to protect herself in this particular case, other than dropping her bank for their horrible security practices. Heck, her mailbox was even locked, which isn't the case for most mailboxes in this country.
I don't see them protesting Veggie Tales.
:-P
Each of these wireless devices will likely cost several times the length of copper/fiber that they would be replacing. The maintenance costs would be astronomical. Despite semiconductors having a nearly indefinite lifetime, batteries...even the best rechargable ones available, still wear out. Also, what you'd save in a PC by decreasing the cost of copper would also be offset several times by the increasing cost of chip grade silicon, which would be in higher demand to manufacture the electronics for these wireless boxes, including the solar panels used to power them.
Costs aside, the amount of bandwidth that you would need to do this would quickly far exceed the available "open air" bandwidth available to you. Yes, you can shove uber amounts of data in high concentrations through the air using DSS or OFDM, but there's still a limit. Within the confines of a fiber or cable, you can have essentially a whole band of RF spectrum available, and duplicate it again and again in each adjacent run of cable/fiber.
Wireless is great, but it has its place in communications technology. Its uses are nearly limitless, but so are its misuses.
Obviously, NASA did the metric to English units conversion for this.
Thought it mattered?!? I don't want people being able to find out that I'm a nerd!
Except that I swear that there are quite a few people that aren't in a fully conscious state until after the third cup of coffee. Cool! That means a lot less incoming email until after 10am or so.
Great, so now we can look forward to people unwittingly sending flaming or sexually harrassing emails in their sleep and not know it until they get called on it the next day.
What buzzword should develop for this phenomena?
Sleeptexting?
InSPAMnia?
...and for those who do, somebody better setup some clear definitions on where the corporate equipment ends and the privately owned "equipment" begins. Might bring new meaning to the phrase "the company owns my brain."
Then again, we're just talking about controlling computers directly from the mind (i.e. no mechanical interfaces), not directly reading/writing information from the mind...at least not yet.
I suppose that's one possibility. That would make for a lot of scanners in one area puking data at an AP. The article wasn't all that technical, anyway, so it's a matter of speculation on how they would plan to make it work at this point. For all we know, some non-technical type strung together a couple of buzzword technologies to make up this idea without knowing anything about the technical aspects of it. If that were the case, I'm surprised that they didn't find a way to weave nanotechnology into it somehow.
Instead, instal micro cell sites and track using their cell phones. They have a reason to take their cell phone with them (not just a useless tracking tag), you don't have the roll out cost of issuing these tags, and to make this work, you're going to have to put up a heckuva lot of new Wi-Fi APs to do any sort of triangulation, anyway. Why not use cell phone signals on maybe several dozen micro cell sites on campus instead? As a bonus, handled call volume increases and you can get the cell companies to help subsidize the cost...and manage the user database, too.
Then again, why in hell do we really need to monitor student movement so closely in the first place?
Something like this might be useful for monitoring criminals/sex offenders that are on parole, in lieu of GPS. But you're right. It's really only good for someone who has lost their normal level of privacy, either to infirmity or criminal reasons.
"Who's upsetting my dots?? Are you messing with my dots?!?"
Adding to your thought: Unless the device is virtually inseperable from the student, what's to say that it isn't left behind during evacuation, or conversely, the student who doesn't evacuate happened to leave their backpack containing it back in their dorm room for the day?
Implant it or strap it to their ankle...otherwise the error rate in tracking the actual location of the individual becomes pretty high.
So I am gathering that the "brains" on these tags can handle all the handshaking involved with an 802.11(b/g/n) link, including whatever parts of TCP/IP are needed to pass the signal strength data back to the servers? Sounds to me that this is a little bit more involved than just an RFID tag, more like a simple Wi-Fi enabled device that connnects and reports back signal strengths/timing etc. A bit more complex than a chip tied to a small antenna patch (and battery for transmit signal amplification).
That it will.
It won't replace a personal flotation device, however. Most PFD's provide somewhere between 11 and 22 lbs of buoyancy, depending on their type (type I having the most, though type III being the most common wearable). It'll be nice that it won't be another piece of clothing to weight you down in the water, but don't expect much help from it, either, unless other types of flotation are incorporated into its design.
Attractive Nuisancein the sense of tort law applies to children, and harm done to them by not recognizing the risks and dangers present by the nuisance.
This guy wasn't a minor, and the Wi-Fi from the coffee shop didn't pose/create a dangerous situation. Attractive nuisance doesn't apply in this case.
I do agree with your last statement, however. Secure it or consider it an invitation for others to use it at their own risk.
Well, the rising price of petroleum products is certainly having an impact on the costs involved with producing corn, but it really doesn't affect how much corn is produced (i.e. supply of corn), so the price of corn isn't driven too much by this.
Escalating petroleum costs cut into the farmer's profit margin, increasing demand for corn raises the price of corn.
...that most fertilizers and pesticides applied to corn are derived from petroleum bases. Farming equipment also uses diesel/gasoline during the planting, cultivating and harvesting of corn. Adding to this, natural gas and propane are commonly used to run corn dryers used to reduce the moisture content of the harvested corn. At one point in 2005, the cost of the fuel for these dryers was more than the revenue produced from the corn itself, making it a wash to even bring the corn to market.
Sure, the price of corn is being driven up by its use for ethanol production, but let's not forget that the cost of growing corn has risen sharply as well in recent years, mostly due to the rising price of petroleum based products.
You're probably right with the misprint.
Articles like this are just fodder for the less technically educated masses, and typically written by somebody with a less technical background (afterall, it _is_ coming from Reuters). When they get posted here, the real fun is watching the interpretation, extrapolation and speculation begin on what is really being done from a technical standpoint.
Step 4a. Helicopter makes first pass over motorcade route, jamming signal to trip such devices, then returns to the start to follow motorcade to jam any other devices not programmed to do step 5.