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Comment: Re:I guess it depends (Score 2) 595

by sigipickl (#43449601) Attached to: Is Bitcoin Mining a Real-World Environmental Problem?

Wilson deregulated the *generation* of electricity in California- The only portion of a regulated utilities' electric bill that the utilities were *not* allowed to profit from. The system was begging to be gamed by those who bought up the power plants. On top of that, he took the private, cooperative operation of the transmission grid and handed it over to a state-run agency (CAL-ISO). Have you ever heard of a state agency doing anything efficiently?

As for Rancho Seco- That plant was a meltdown waiting to happen. Bad engineering and even worse management. A little utility like SMUD had no business being in the nuclear generation game in the first place. We are still paying for that nightmare in our bills every month.

And the Kings- They are a failure economically because Sacramento's main industry is Government. For as over-funded as most of our state agencies are, they are not allowed to buy sky boxes or court-side seats. There is not a single Fortune 500 company headquartered within 50 miles of the state capitol. When your 3 largest private employers in town are hospitals (feeding off the very generous health care benefits that government employees receive), you know you are in trouble. I wish KJ would put the energy that he is putting in to keeping the Kings in to fostering a better business climate for companies to grow here. Just look at the SF Bay Area- 8 million people and 6 professional franchises (7 if you count MLS). The greater Sacramento area has 2 million people and we are about to lose our *only* professional franchise because we can't sell sky boxes/premium seats at a rate that would justify building a new arena around them.

Comment: Re:Why arent ISPs using WiFi for last-mile? (Score 1) 174

by sigipickl (#41568557) Attached to: 802.11ad Will Knock Your Socks Off, Says Interop Panel

Why are we all still tied to wires?

Because WiFi is still half-duplex, similar to hubs that many of us used in the mid-90's. 802.11ac starts to address some of the of the simplex issues by placing users on individual spatial streams within a channel, but the communication between the client and the access point is still half-duplex, it's just somewhat isolated from other clients connected to the same AP...

The other major issue is that WiFi is still using ISM frequencies... 900MHz was squashed before WiFi was prevalent, 2.4GHz is squashed now, and with Apple finally putting a 5GHz radio in the iPhone, 5GHz will be a mess in the next few years... though with higher throughput, higher bandwidth and lower signal propogation, 5GHz will be more manageable.

The whole conversation is somewhat moot though, as 802.11ac has yet to be ratified.

Comment: Re:Apples and Oranges (Score 4, Informative) 272

by sigipickl (#37823338) Attached to: Bill Gates On What Business Can Teach Schools

Money is not the problem, accountability is.

Here in California, local property tax money is redistributed throughout the state. Often schools is poorer neighborhoods get more money per student than the schools in more affluent areas. Heck, in some districts teachers get paid more to teach in the under-achieving schools. Nothing has gotten better except the employment at schools.

Comment: Band Steering (Score 1) 165

by sigipickl (#37822822) Attached to: IT Shops Coping With Overloaded 2.4GHz WiFi Band

I don't know if apple fixed their wireless driver in IOS 5, but I have found that the iPad running IOS 4 does not 'steer' to 5GHz when presented with the same SSID on 2.4GHz and 5GHz. This has been a consistent experience using Cisco, HP (E-series), and Ruckus wireless networks. With some of my customers, we have had to create different SSIDs for the bands to get their fleets of iPads off 2.4GHz.

Comment: Re:Novell Netware (Score 1) 533

by sigipickl (#35802748) Attached to: Workers Will Smash Their PCs To Get an Upgrade

I was in High School 20 years ago and not until 1992 was I even exposed to NetWare (as a client user in college, I remember everything being menu driven. wow, that was a long time ago...). I'm interested- what did NetWare then do then that AD doesn't do now?

I am not trying to troll or discount your comment- I'm truly interested. I have also heard a bunch of folks talk up eDirectory being the shit as well, but have yet to come across it.

Comment: Boredom... (Score 3, Interesting) 222

by sigipickl (#35196742) Attached to: Virus Shuts Down Australian Ambulance Dispatch Service

Having worked for many health care facilities over the years, including those with EMT/Ambulance staff, I can tell you that ambulance drivers and dispatchers suffer from periods of insane boredom while waiting for the next call to come in. During this downtime, they monkey with the PCs, browse some of the most pointless/inappropriate websites, and try plugging anything with an ethernet jack in to your network. The latter includes personal laptops, wireless access points and satellite/cable boxes. Solutions to this include 802.1x/NAP and even just getting the crews a DSL/Cable internet connection for their personal use. Like many things in I.T. (and life in general), the more you restrict someone's access to something they want, the more they will work against your efforts to restrict them.

In this case, I'll put my money on an outside computer being plugged in to the network.

I've never had to deal with I.T. in a fire station, but I can guess it's every bit as bad, if not worse.

Please, won't somebody tell me what diddie-wa-diddie means?

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