alphamerik - Slashdot User

GPS Receiver Noise Can Be Used To Detect Snow Depth 51

Posted by timothy on Wednesday September 30, 2009 @02:12PM from the for-the-journal-of-sensors-and-transducers dept.

cremeglace writes "Scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found a use for GPS besides finding restaurants or the occasional road-that-doesn't-exist: it can be used to measure snow depth. The new technique, which takes advantage of distortions of the GPS signal after it reflects off the snowpack, may potentially improve weather forecasts by allowing meteorologists to track snowfall patterns. ScienceNOW has the story, which one geophysicist describes as 'a classical case of one person's noise becoming another person's signal.'"

Comment meaning of life and existential crisis (Score 1) 512

by alphamerik on Thursday August 27, 2009 @09:38AM (#29215875) Attached to: Depression May Provide Cognitive Advantages

Unfortunately there exists a condition of being depressed about ones function within the universe and purpose for being. What is the meaning of relationships? Is everything self gratification? Absurdism may be the only practical approach, but not everyone is depressed about petty worldy or personal things.

Verizon Wants To Share Your Personal Information 236

Posted by timothy on Sunday March 08, 2009 @03:33PM from the on-display-right-there-in-the-locked-cabinet dept.

hyades1 writes "Gizmodo reports that Verizon is sending out notification letters infested with virtually-indecipherable legalese. In their sneaky, underhanded way, they're informing you that you have 45 days to opt out of their plan to share your personal data with 'affiliates, agents and parent companies.' That data can include, but isn't limited to, 'services purchased (including specific calls you make and receive), billing info, technical info and location info.' If you view your statement on-line, you won't even get the letter. You'll have to access your account and view your messages. However, Read Write Web says the link provided there, called the 'Customer Proprietary Network Information Notice,' was listed as 'not available.' No doubt Verizon would like to reassure you that everyone they're going to hand your personal data over to will have your best interests at heart."

Comment Re:device not banned (Score 5, Informative) 134

by alphamerik on Friday February 27, 2009 @12:23PM (#27012901) Attached to: Google Dev Phone 1 Banned From Paid Apps

I confirm this story is bunk, and anyone who is carrying this story should be ashamed (I am looking at you Engadget and Slashdot).

Go and download "holiday_devphone-userdebug 1.1" image, paid apps will show up fine because it has the features of the Tmobile g33 firmware required to see paid apps. I shouldn't need to google that for you...

The thing is, the ADP1 does not come with support, the original ADP1 firmware does not update automatically. As a developer and ADP1 owner one should be able to keep up with the news and figure this stuff out for oneself.

Google Dev Phone 1 Banned From Paid Apps 134

Posted by timothy on Friday February 27, 2009 @08:51AM from the please-contradict-this-claim dept.

ScrewMaster points out an short article according to which purchasers of the G1 Android phone's developer-oriented variant will be out of luck if they want to buy apps from Google's application store. "Google is not going to allow programmers who have purchased the Dev Phone 1 to purchase paid apps from the Android Market. I just signed up as a G1 developer, and was about to plunk down the $399 for a Dev Phone 1, but now I'm going to have to think about it. I know that Google is interested in preventing (cough) 'piracy,' but does this seem like the right way to go? I know the Dev Phone 1 is primarily a developer's tool, but I would like to actually use the thing, and not have to spend another $180 from T-Mobile for a regular G1 just for the privilege of buying software." I hope this isn't true; the unlocked G1 looked like a pretty cool phone, especially (being unlocked) for travel to countries where pre-paid SIM cards are the norm.

Comment Re:what's that smell (Score 1) 708

by alphamerik on Wednesday June 06, 2007 @09:50AM (#19409997) Attached to: HardOCP Spends 30 Days With MacOSX

Macports prepends 'g' or 'gnu' to the gnu system utilities, so it is 'guname' instead of 'uname'. That is fine, except any script which requires the GNU version won't work (if the OSX version is incompatible). Fink and OSX utilities don't stomp on each other because the PATH environment is set for shells (Fink installs in /sw), so which ever utility the shell sees first it will use. I have never had any instances of applications misbehaving because it uses the wrong utility (but my guess is few use command-line utilities). If you are using scripts specifically written for OSX/BSD you might have problems tho. xargs is an example of a utility which for some reason has fewer options in OSX - it would be nice if operating systems could stick to using GNU utilities, it would make cross-platform scripting so much easier.

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