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Submission + - Wireless Parking Meter Sniffing?

An anonymous reader writes: Two fellow employees of mine have related that they have had credit cards used illegally after using them to pay for parking in San Francisco, using meters that have wireless connectivity. Has anyone else heard of this kind of hack? I know they use the 900 MHz range, same as utility SmartMeters, for which I have seen sniffers built. Does anyone know if the traffic is encrypted from the meter to the local antennae, before moving to cell transmission?

Comment Screen size vs resolution (Score 1) 347

Just a WAG here - they'll charge based on pixels (screen size) and you'll get what you pay for. If you want to spoof your 80" HDMI TV to a phone size to save on the download, then your video will look terrible (or very small). So you can buy 800px, 1040px, 2400px or 6000px for your viewing experience - its all up to you. Pixels sent basically relate to bandwidth.

But will the studios cheat and up-scale a 2400px to 6000px so they can charge you more? Time will tell.

Comment Gen 1 camera (Score 1) 129

I just got the Gen 1 version of the camera. I like the small package size and the small price. You can use it to just take regular pictures, but you can have a lot of fun composing creative photos that takes advantage of the refocus capability to tell a story in the photo using the foreground and and the background as distinct photo elements. For example, a foreground subject tells one story, but refocus on the background element and the meaning of the story suddenly changes in a surprising way. Fun.
Technology

Lytro Illum Light-Field Camera Lets You Refocus Pictures Later 129

Iddo Genuth writes "Earlier today Lytro introduced a new light-field camera called Illum. This is the second camera with this innovative refocusing technology from the California based company founded in 2006. The new camera is a more advanced version of the first camera introduced in 2012. It has a much larger sensor with four times the resolution (Lytro still uses the term megarays instead of megapixels), a much larger and longer zoom lens with a f/2 constant aperture and of course the ability to refocus after you take a picture (the new Illum can refocus on many more points in the image compared to the older version). Users will also have more control of the camera, a larger screen, and the ability to create regular JPEG images or videos made from the refocused images they capture."

Comment Global warming? Check back in 1000 years (Score 0) 235

So the range of mass extinction events ranges between 5,000 and 60,000 years and were caused by natural events like volcano and asteroids. I say keep collecting data on climate change for another several hundred years before making any more dire predictions about rapid change and the end of the world.

Comment Mayo is usually made with eggs and vinegar? (Score 1) 269

Mayo is usually made with eggs and oil (and perhaps a drop or two of vinegar).

You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.

Unless you're out to catch fruit flies, then use apple vinegar.

Remember my grandma's saying: "Miracle Whip ruined the dip"

A shot of (apple cider or balsamic) vinegar in the morning will kill excess yeasts in your digestive (which may be causing your allergies).

Sugary foods will feed the yeast (perhaps making you tired)

White vinegar is also great for cleaning stuff. Like laundry stains, bathrooms, or calcium buildup on the shower head.

Don't Panic. Just carry on.

Comment Detroit - the new old-south? (Score 1) 398

On the surface it sure sounds like it has the structure and makings of the indentured-servant, only a short difference from slavery. There are plenty of unemployed and under-employed in the USA today. I give this idea two thumbs down.

I'd suggest:

Continue to downsize Detroit city limits. Reduce operating costs.

Employ locals for demolition and cleanup work

Clean up the town zone by zone

Clean out government corruption

Reinvent - attract new business with tax incentives. There is no going back to the old model.

Comment Heat and pressure (Score 1) 165

It seems the factor was the amount of pressure between the fry and the oil. You could probably accomplish the same thing by submerging the fry in 2 ft of cooking oil rather than floating them on the surface. Not as much fun though.

I concur about not cooking with olive oil - that's for cold dishes since heat destroys it. Cook with natural peanut or coconut oil, or lard for bacon flavor fries. Avoid the chemically refined and stripped vegetable oils.

Comment Wireless broadband is a dialup modem (Score 1) 410

Anyone using a wireless broadband modem is on a dial up. Ok, so the speeds are higher than they used to be in the pre 56KB land line days.

For the record, I first programmed used a 300 baud acoustic coupler from a teletype to a PDP-8 circia 1971 and last used a dial up in about 2003 using NetZero/Juno dial-up from a hotel.

Comment Re:Who Pays? (Score 1) 216

It will likely start with the city bus system funded by taxpayers. Just move the overhead power lines underground on selected routes to test the concept. The encrypted signal is so other users can't steal the power without a subscription. Quick, someone patent storing energy in a capacitor so you can get the car/truck/bus the next 100 yards down the road.

Comment Re:Is This for Real? (Score 1) 232

If the problem to solve is trivial, then perhaps offer a solution. If its hard enough that you'd worry about doing free consulting, then switch tactics and ask questions, deep probing questions to make sure you understand the whole picture. The interviewer should be able to determine from the questions you ask that you know what your are doing, or at least you know what you don't know which is also valuable to solving a problem. If they keep pressing for a solution, then they're either unethical or incompetent so you should either walk away or raise your rates. We run into this periodically where during a bid tender and proposal process the customer is asking for the solution pre-sales. Then it becomes a game of chess - to demonstrate that you know what you are doing without giving away the cash-cow vs. winning the business/job.

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