What makes you think A is really X's friend and not some random guy that bought what they thought was a new SIM and which turns out to be used one last owned by X?

PR-wise, it doesn't matter because we (USofA!) will still claim that we killed their #2 or #3 sub-commander.

But you do raise an interesting point. Could those SIM cards be sold/donated to the enemies of X? So we (USofA!) end up killing X's enemies for him?

Cut the speaker and display wires (no sound and no lights) and you now have a "homing beacon" for a drone attack that can be hidden just about anywhere.

Some have as many as 16 different SIM cards associated with their identity within the High Value Target system while other top Taliban leaders, knowing of the NSA's targeting method, have purposely and randomly distributed SIM cards among their units in order to elude their trackers.

So instead of killing X you kill X's friends A, B and C.

That doesn't sound like a good plan on their part.

I'd look for ways to communicate without SIM cards. Or to trash used SIM cards. They're cheap. Really cheap.

In what world do most employees except graphics designers and hair dressers end up with a "portfolio" of work they can show?

If you're a programmer then your portfolio is the Open Source projects that you've contributed to.

I've had employers take positive note of it 7 years after I graduated and I'm sure it still supports and gives credibility to my more recent work history.

You're confusing "degree" with "GPA". Having a degree is a positive achievement. But once you get your first job you will not have to explain why you have a 3.0 GPA instead of a 4.0.

The only reason employers look at grades is to judge who is elite and who are the median.

Let me change that a bit.

The only reason employers look at grades is because you are applying for your first job and you have not built a portfolio sufficient for the hiring process.

Once you have your first job no one cares about your grades.

We actually have a time-tested way of comparing students' performance to each other: grading on a curve.

That only works when MULTIPLE RANDOM items are compared. Such as rolling 3d6.

Since answering questions on a test should NOT be random there should not be any reason to attempt to force the scores into a curve.

When I was in college (early 2000s, major American public university), all science and math courses were graded on curves, with 10-15% of the class getting As.

I started college in 1983. The grades were based upon how many questions you answered correctly. It did not matter what other students answered. Why would it?

Some students complained that they were doing well and learning the material, but are only getting Bs because of superstars in the course. To that, I say tough, because in the real world, no one is going to hire you to do anything just because you are good enough if another candidate is around who will do a better job than you will.

By that logic, a "B" student in one class could be an "A" student in the same class with the same professor on the same material with the same answers ... but in a different semester/quarter.

Which means that the smart students will learn to "game" the system.

Humans wash dishes pretty damned well, but dishwashers are pretty popular despite this. Labour saving devices and appliances to do things we can do, but find boring, are pretty popular things.

And yes - something to help care for the elderly. We have nurses but they are so expensive that only the rich can afford to have them to care for them in their own home. A robot that can help out with various tasks can mean an elderly person of normal means can retain their independence for a bit longer at their own home, instead of being sent to an expensive nursing home where in many cases they get treated like dirt.

The point of machines is not just to do things we can't do, but to do things we don't like doing, or is expensive for a human to do.

Precisely, a *good* engineer would take this into account.

Warranties are supposed to take care of faults through defective design and workmanship. An audio subsystem that allows software to destroy it (doubly so if it lets userland software destroy it) is defective workmanship.

If you never meant a low frequency square wave, then you're not going to keep the speaker in one position for any length of time (which was your original hypothesis).

As the frequency gets higher and higher, it will look less and less like a square wave. The amplifier design will likely include a low pass filter somewhere in its design which will limit the fastest rise and fall time of the wave form. As the frequency gets close to the upper end of the audible range (say above ~12 to 15KHz or so) you'll probably find the amplitude of the signal reaching the speaker starts to roll off even if you send a maximum amplitude square wave to the input of the audio amplifier. Your square wave will at best look like a triangle or sawtooth wave and will be decreasing in amplitude more and more until it has virtually disappeared.

Some time ago I measured a square wave through a simple audio circuit (a typical amplifier in a modern laptop will perform rather better, but it still shows what will happen to a square wave as the frequency increases as it passes through a typical audio amplifier), and I still have the screen grabs from the oscilloscope. Let me demonstrate:

Waveform 1 (lowest frequency): http://photo.alioth.net/tmp2/b...
Waveform 2 (mid frequency): http://photo.alioth.net/tmp2/b...
Waveform 3 (highish frequency): http://photo.alioth.net/tmp2/b...
Waveform 4 (highest): http://photo.alioth.net/tmp2/b...

The square wave input was of identical amplitude for each of these, the only thing changed was the frequency. As I said the low pass filter in a typical amplifier found in a laptop's audio circuit won't start seriously attenuating the circuit anywhere near as low as this particular circuit, but it certainly will do the same in any case.

An audio designer who doesn't expect square waves at full design amplitude to go through his system is described by one word: "negligent". Typical 1980s analogue synthesizers often generated square waves, so you have to expect that some sound might contain a lot of square wave content. If a square wave not exceeding rated power can kill the Dell's speaker or audio circuit, then the product is defective and they should fix it under warranty, as warranties are supposed to fix defects caused by bad workmanship.

That's not going to happen. Every audio system will essentially have filters in its design - a capacitor that will block signals near DC (so you can't move the speaker to one position and keep it there) and a low pass filter that will remove unwanted high frequency components of the signal. You can't send a signal to a speaker in any sanely designed audio system and keep the speaker in one position for any appreciable length of time.

That's wrong. Connect a 200W speaker to a 100W amp, and the most you'll produce is still 100W (and a correctly designed amp rated to 100W continuous will not expire under these conditions).

The Tsar Bomba wasn't exploded over a city. It's the burning cities that create the nuclear winter, not the actual nuclear explosion.

None of those nukes were detonated on live cities.

That's what makes the difference. That's why the Tsar Bomba nor the atmospheric tests produced these effects - they were detonated over wildernesses, not cities full of highly flammable hydrocarbons and hydrocarbon products. That's why an actual nuclear war would produce a nuclear winter, although the atmospheric tests done in the 1950s won't.

And one should design for those limits instead of falling back on "it's the software"- it's a brown paper bag moment to have breakable parts like that exposed in the firmware so that drivers or applications can break things.

I don't know about you, but I've spent decades making sure on digital designs and the like you CAN'T do that sort of thing. I can't be the ONLY one doing it- and it wasn't acceptable then for those items (they got REPLACED on the spot...) and it's not acceptable now (and it's illegal, pretty much like I said, to DO it the way Dell's playing it.)

Indeed. Enough Said.

And they're not fooling anyone either.

If there is software that can damage those speakers in the manner that Dell's trying to claim, it fails upon UCC 2-314 and UCC 2-315 out of box.

Per Mangusson-Moss, it's not legally possible for them to claim that their warranty is voided just because there is a piece of software put onto the machine because they didn't limit their warranty in this case in writing (and if they did put it in a fine-print manner, few would buy and they'd be in deep trouble with the Texas and other States Deceptive Trade Practices Act for doing so- because it's something that is deemed unconscionable (In fact, the TDTPA has the act in question as a laundry-list item for the law...it's illegal out of box...)) and therefore, they have to PROVE (not just CLAIM) that it was the software in question for Mangusson-Moss to NOT apply here, that they did something deliberate to damage the product. Because of the explanation from one of the VLC crowd on the forum pretty much shoots that out of the water (Not realistically possible to damage the speakers unless the speakers were substandard or defective...), the Warranty STANDS. At this point, Dell has one of three options allowed them by the Uniform Commercial Code: Fix, Replace, or Refund. Seriously.