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Comment Re:Nobody cares about Scam Radio (Score 1) 102

by CamoCoatJoe (#35635024) Attached to: Microsoft Sniffs Out Unused Wireless Spectrum

How about a global RF-based internet, controlled only by the UN and free to all people on the planet? High-speed high capacity links on microwave and UHF, slower-speed longer-range links on VHF and HF. Free internet, controlled by no government and no corporations, for and by the people. The technology exists. The frequencies exist. We just have to get rid of the hams and get the work done. The broadband monopolies would die, and their regimes of censorship and thought controls with them.
This would be a great leap forward for all mankind, and all we have to do is clear out the hams and then make it happen.
This is the kind of stuff the hams are SUPPOSED to be doing themselves, but they're too lazy and/or invested in the existing regimes to do it.

Why would the UN get involved with this? What makes you think that UN control would mean no effective governmental control? A UN-controlled internet would likely turn into a recording/movie industry-controlled internet. It would have every spy agency getting whatever access they wanted. Countries would force each other into it, and blame the treaties they signed so no one has to answer to their people.

Free? Yeah, right. Who would pay for it? Are you talking about a zero-infrastructure network? If so, it's easier said than done. If not, who pays for the relays that have to support ever-increasing traffic?

If you think that hams are just being lazy by not building this, then get a ham licence and do it yourself. Seriously. If anyone had such a project that looked fairly viable, I'd get whatever licence needed to get involved right away and jump in. If you become a ham, you won't need permission from anyone to launch such a project. Prove that they're being lazy by ceasing to be lazy yourself. There's nothing stopping you.
(Me? I'm so lazy I haven't even become a ham yet. I'm guessing the same is true of you. Maybe I should get around to fixing that.)

Comment Re:Nobody cares about Scam Radio (Score 2) 102

by CamoCoatJoe (#35634954) Attached to: Microsoft Sniffs Out Unused Wireless Spectrum

Okay, I'll bite. It's been a while since I've wasted time arguing on Slashdot.

Ham Radio is just a big scam so that a bunch of Republican retirees can sit around with ancient equipment and chat with their buddies without having to pay for phone time or internet access.

'Cause ham radio equipment is so much cheaper than the phones that they already have, and that they still use? Of the few hams I know, they all have phones, most of them including cell phones.

They do nothing that cannot be done better by actual professional crews

Some hams are also radio professionals. One ham I met was also a (cell phone?) network tech, who became a ham operator because he wanted to learn more about the fundamentals of radio technology. Being a ham makes him a better member of his "professional crew".

and they do nothing in the research arena anymore.

You mean like making the first cell phones? CDMA was made and used by hams before anyone else. How exactly would an inventor experiment with a new radio tech idea? Auction for bandwidth just to find out if your idea even works? Ask permission to innovate? Yeah, that's American.

In 20 years nobody will know or care what a ham radio is. The world will be a better place for it.

Yeah, a lack of fault-tolerant, long range, emergency radio links will surely make this world a better place. If you figure letting polluting humans just die instead of coordinating rescue efforts is a net gain.

Ham radio is about freedom, something a few of us still care about, not just cool new cell phones. The freedom to transmit using any protocol, any modulation, to anyone, anywhere. For all the talk about the internet being a tool for free speech, it isn't nearly as free as ham radio. Hams have gotten information across borders in some of the countries cracking down on protesters, when the internet lines were completely cut off, and people were being searched for media at the border. They've got ATV to get video out of there. What do you have?

Comment Re:people still use wine? (Score 1) 427

by CamoCoatJoe (#32946600) Attached to: Wine 1.2 Released

Virtual Machines are slow, no matter what.

Try VirtualBox. I use it all the time, and get near-native speed. "Near-native" meaning that I hardly ever notice any slow-down during normal use, and I've watched videos in the guest without any of the acceleration stuff turned on, without any problems, except in one guest. I've run it on WinXP and Ubuntu 9.10 hosts, with WinXP, Win7 RC, Ubuntu 8.10, and 9.10 as guests. Of course, it does help that I have a dual-core processor.

They require a windows license and they suck when it comes to D3D and even OpenGL. [...] eat up half your RAM just to launch a crapload of services that come in your typical Windows installation.

True. Though VB has experimental support for hardware acceleration, it hasn't worked for me, and I haven't tried to run games in a VM, except once (unsuccessfully).
Technology (Apple)

The Apple II At 30 299

Posted by kdawson from the hacker's-dream-and-appliance dept.
turnitover sends us to eWEEK for an appreciation of the Apple II on the 30th anniversary of its shipping. An overview of the history of the Apple II puts it in context. A nice tidbit: how important the floppy drive was to sales. The article quotes Sellam Ismail, the proprietor of VintageTech, which maintains archives of computers, documents, and software: "You could think of the Apple II's importance on two levels — the Woz level and the Steve Jobs level." The former refers to its allure to hackers, and the latter to its appliance-like polish, a first for its time, There is also an interview with Woz, who says, "[A]t the start there were no computers in the home — we had to make the word computer compatible with homes."
Role Playing (Games)

Submission + - SecondLife Crackdown: Accusations of Child Porn

Submitted by sboutwell
sboutwell writes: From Secondlife's BLOG http://blog.secondlife.com/2007/05/09/accusations- regarding-child-pornography-in-second-life/#more-9 52

Recent crack downs and required IDENTITY information updates are coming because of Recent accusations of KIDDIE PORN and Child Adult Sexual Play in Second Life.

From their Blog: On Thursday May 3, we were contacted by German television network, ARD, which had captured images of two avatars, one that resembled an adult male and another that resembled a child, engaged in depicted sexual conduct. Our investigations revealed the users behind these avatars to be a 54-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman. Both were immediately banned from Second Life.

More details on all of this as well as Secondlife's official response can be found on their BLOG.
Security

Vista's Troublesome UAC is Developer's Fault? 228

Posted by Cliff from the sh'yeah-right dept.
MythMoth wonders: "We've heard all about the pain and discomfort of working with Windows' User Account Control (UAC) switched on, but now Ian Griffiths is explaining that the developers are the problem — they brought it on themselves. In earlier articles we have heard that Microsoft think that everyone should do it like this — Ian does acknowledge that things are better in the Unix world, but is he right? Is the onus now on the developers to help fix a problem that they did not cause?" Rather than ask the user for permission on every operation, what other ways could Microsoft have improved Vista's security?
The Internet

Submission + - Wal-Mart Shoplifters Hold Signs of Crime

Submitted by
DownintheUpside
DownintheUpside writes: ""Wal-Mart doesn't want thieves on its property, including two convicted shoplifters ordered by a judge to stand outside with signs reading "I am a thief, I stole from Wal-Mart." Attalla City Judge Kenneth Robertson said Wednesday that an attorney for Wal-Mart told him the shoplifters couldn't finish out their sentences in front of the store. The judge had ordered them to spend two Saturday afternoons holding the signs. Robertson said the attorney told him that the discount retail giant had safety concerns about the sign-bearing shoplifters outside the Supercenter, where they drew notice last Saturday. The judge said the main concern was "that people might try to run them down or throw something at them."

I think this is a great idea, this form of punishment should be done to all shoplifters at least once."
Censorship

Submission + - Surprise arrest for online Scientology critic

Submitted by
destinyland
destinyland writes: "An online critic of Scientology was confronted at a routine hearing Tuesday with surprise arrest warrants, and thrown into jail. Six years as a fugitive ended in Feburary. (After picketing a Scientology complex in 2000, he'd been arrested for "threatening a religion" over a Usenet joke about "Tom Cruise Missiles.") But 64-year-old Keith Henson had been out on bail, and was even scheduled to address the European Space Agency conference on Space Elevators. He's a co-founder of the Space Colony movement, and one of the original researchers at Texas Instruments. In this interview he discusses both space-based solar energy and his war with the Scientologists — just a few days before he was arrested and sent to prison."
Software

Submission + - the myths of innovation

Submitted by
cgjherr
cgjherr writes: "Ah, the technology history book, normally I'm not a fan. The writing is aloof and dry. The topics are vague, the history misinterpreted, and the lessons presented to vague to be applicable. And don't get me started on the illustrations, which are all too often pyramids with the authors perched at the top looking down on the lowly reader at the base. Thankfully, this book, "the myths of innovation" breaks all of these rules. It's an engaging, fun and quick read. The history is interesting, and the lessons presented are practical. I particularly like the author's tone. It's witty and light. Which makes this a very fast read, one that leaves you wanting even more by the end.

But let step back for a second and introduce the book to you. "The myths of innovation" is about how innovation happens in the real world in companies, universities and garages around the company. The first two chapters really draw the reader in by showing the twin fallacies of the epiphany moment and the historically clean line of innovation. Learning that innovation doesn't just come as a flash, and that lots of successes have come out of copious failure encourages us to try to innovate, and to keep trying even when we believe we have failed.

This short book (147 pages of content) is presented in ten short chapters. The first two show you how anyone can be an innovator. You can think of those as the debunking chapters. The third chapter is where the author starts helping you to build some techniques to innovate. He presents how there are some reasonable methods to spur innovation. And shows examples from Apple, Google, Edison, Craiglist and more.

In chapter four he shows how to overcome peoples fears of innovation and overcome the common problems with the adoption of new technologies. Chapter five, "the lone innovator", debunks the legend of, well, the lone innovator. It sounds good, and plays into our noble story of the hero, but it's none too common in reality. Chapter six talks about ideas and surveys where innovators have found the ideas that they start out with. And of course, where you start is not often where you end. But that's ok since innovation is a lot more about failure than it is about success.

Chapter seven covers something I think most of us can relate to, which is that managers aren't often the innovators. Chapter eight talks about how we believe that the "best ideas always win" but that's least often the case. Of course, it sounds pessimistic, but it's actually an interesting study in how the biggest product with the most feature isn't always the best for the customer. Chapter nine, "problems and solutions", talks about framing problems to constrain the creativity and innovation. The final chapter, "innovation is always good", is at the same time the most amusing and disturbing. It covers innovations from the automobile to DDT and presents that innovation, no matter what, is always good. Agree or disagree the points are well presented.

As I say I really enjoyed this book. It's an easy read that is hard to put down. And what's more it's really motivating. After reading this book you will want to dig right back into those crazy ideas lurking around in the back of your mind and give them another shot. And you will have a few more tools are your disposal to turn your ideas into tangible reality."
Software

Submission + - N.Y. Times to data mine customers for profit.

Submitted by pilsner.urquell
pilsner.urquell writes: The Village Voiceis running this story:

Having Won a Pulitzer for Exposing Data Mining, Times Now Eager to Do Its Own Data Mining.

Barely a year after their reporters won a Pulitzer prize for exposing data mining of ordinary citizens by a government spy agency, New York Times officials had some exciting news for stockholders last week: The Times company plans to do its own data mining of ordinary citizens, in the name of online profits.
Space

Submission + - Hottest exoplanet ever discovered

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The online journal Nature describes the finding of the exoplanet HD 149026b, which is the hottest exoplanet yet discovered. HD149026b has a temperature of 3,040 degrees Celsius, which is hotter than some of the coolest stars, and perhaps hot enough to have titanium and vanadium exist as gases, one scientist suggests. The planet would appear charcoal black, but appear to glow a dull red from the infrared heat that it emits.
Handhelds

Submission + - Trusting Your Handheld GPS

Submitted by
thetan
thetan writes: "The Age reports that an Australian woman followed instructions from her handheld GPS to navigate some 200km — before getting horribly lost and bogged on a dirt track in heavy bushland at night. Frightened and distressed, she called emergency services but police had some difficulty in locating her. She explained that the GPS unit directed her late-model Toyota Corolla down the track, used only by tractors and motorbikes. In unfamiliar terrain, how would you know when to disregard directions from your navigation system and let your common-sense take over?"

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