On a Bendix axle plant production line. On an Altair. Hardness tester. Test hardness. Spray red or green paint.

Project got dropped in my lap, no software had been written. Ship date had arrived. Boss told a white lie and sent me and a technician to "install the equipment, and make some final adjustments".

The "final adjustments" were writing the software.

Oh. He told one more white lie. As far as the plant personnel were concerned, we were three days late. We didn't know we were three days late. They started yelling at us as soon as we arrived.

They found me a table and chair, and I set-up the Altair next to the inspection line. The line was down (no pressure!) but it's still damn noisy in there!

Plus: the two machine operators were there, twiddling their thumbs. I got to ask questions like "how would you like this button to work?" (WHAT design?)

Plus Two: The Middlesex Diner.

Serious answer: it's kinda sad, because the guy obviously is suffering from dementia of some sort.

Yes, he and his wife both seem to be racist jerks that don't realize that. But in the past, he's had the mental facilities to stop himself before he said something stupid or inciting. I think it just spills out and he has no control over it. This is apparent from the conflicting statements he makes from one sentence to the next.

Dementia: turning racist jerks into really racist jerks.

Like Steve Ballmer isn't going do anything controversial or embarrassing...

"Players, players, players, players, players, players, players!"

What will be throw in the clubhouse? Certainly, something more destructive that mere chairs!

Looks like we have some NSA mods here.

Every post suggesting that this won't work because the electronics will just be covertly re-designed are being modded down.

No.

The intelligence agencies will just plant engineers in the companies that make the sensors, and will stealthily add circuitry that will alter the data to make it non-random in a known way.

Most posters here seem not to have read the details on the Github page, and are missing the point.

This is a way to have encrypted point-to-point communication or (in some cases) network using any radio (or other) transmission equipment that will transmit/receive audio signals and allow you to tap-into the analog audio circuit of the transmitter and receiver. You could use it with:

- telephones (landline kind)
- mobile phones
- radio transceivers (legal or illegal - the protocol doesn't *require* that you break the law!)
- optical communication equipment - free air/fibre
- etc. etc. etc.

It just defines a common protocol and means of modulation/demodulation.

They take a whole lot of words to say this, and throw in a lot of revolutionary rhetoric.

And yes, it's very similar to amateur packet radio, except encrypted. So, lots of existing code to draw from.

It's well within the capability of any PC or smartphone today. Although I let my ham license lapse many years ago, I do have a couple of receivers squirreled away somewhere, and a few years ago I experimented with listening-in on amateur packet radio. You just run the output from your receiver into the input of a Soundblaster card (I SAID this was a few years ago...) and the application handles the decoding.

An interesting side-note: If you're near an airport, you can use similar software to decode VHF ACARS transmissions. (The kind that hasn't helped much in locating MH370). Just install some open-source software, hook your scanner up to your PC, tune to the right frequency, and it turns the squawks into somewhat-readable messages.

It's biggest drawback is it's biggest strength, IMO. It DOESN'T define a common frequency, some complex frequency-hopping or spread-spectrum scheme, or even common transmission media. It would be extremely hard for it to gain critical mass. On the other hand, it means there are an awful lot of places one would have to look to find it. It's up to whatever group that wants to communicate to settle on a transmission media and (if applicable) frequency.

Well, yea, except for losing a few letters...

(V G E R)

I have 4 Samsung SyncMaster 213T monitors, circa 2000. One finally died. The other 3 are going strong. These are IPS monitors, and for some reason IPS went out of favor for years (cost, I suppose) and were hard to find. And few newer ones have as wide a viewing angle.

While it's long gone, I had a Hammarlund SP-600 SuperPro that had seen 30 years of use before I got it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H...

I left Detroit for San Diego around 1985. I wrote software for various auto-related stuff (CNC, gauging, factory automation, SQC, Variation Analysis...) when I was there, and the experience was invaluable.

The irony is that the percentage of tech works now is likely many times what it was when I was there. The job loss has been in blue-collor factory jobs, support jobs for the closed factories, service and retail to support all those workers, etc. etc. etc.

Yea, my old high school (Cass Tech) got gutted by a scrapper fire. (They built a new school, and the old one was to be turned into Condos...)

If the "primary directive" of the NSA were actually National Security (rather than spying) what they should do would be obvious.

In the interest of national security, should the NSA discover such an exploit, they should quietly work with public and private organizations to get as much of the infrastructure fixed before the exploit becomes generally known.

Instead, though, what we have is that the NSA has likely had free access. Along with the rest of the world's spy agencies. And hackers and crime networks. That doesn't foster national security, IMO.

GoPro: a heck of a lot cheaper, higher resolution, good enough for the cops. Put it in some sort of clip, remove it from the clip for close-ups. Yes, it's dorky. But less dorky than Google Glass.

San Diego developers already use cable service as a criteria when house-hunting. You want to be in a Cox area! Unfortunately, most of the jobs are in Time Warner areas. Now the service will go from bad to worse...

-- a lucky South-of-Interstate-8 developer...

.... the grunge that is going to collect between the modules!

It's really about the stupidest idea I've seen from Google.

Every pluggable/removable part multiplies the opportunity for failure. It's why so many consumer devices now have embedded non-user-removable batteries. (No, *not* to rip-off consumers when they have to pay for service to have the battery replaced. Most of these devices are discarded or removed from service before the battery might need replacement.)

Great. Now we have a bunch of under-insured, illegal jitney drivers, just like any third-world nation...

Read the tales of woe of Uber-X drivers who have lost their personal insurance. Yes, riders and the other driver in an accident are covered by Uber-X, up to an inadequate $100,000.

California Livery law requires $1,000,000 insurance, though, and specific licensing to drive passengers for hire.

These drivers typically have neither of these, though. And personal policies generally specifically exclude driving for hire. So, driver gets in an accident, Uber pays, and driver is now out of a job (or side job) and is uninsurable.