* Posts by Cortland Richmond

139 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Jun 2007

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Attack of the quarter-ton, 'fridge-sized' killer jellyfish

Cortland Richmond

Jamfish?

Having driven the Cod to near extinction... may we have some JAM fish, please?

FCC boss gets knuckle-rapped

Cortland Richmond

Not growing roses

The Commission was already rebuked by the D.C. Court of Appeals for selectively editing technical information used in the BPL Rulemaking.

http://pacer.cadc.uscourts.gov/common/opinions/200804/06-1343-1112979.pdf

excerpt:

"...there is no APA precedent allowing an agency to cherry-pick a study on which

it has chosen to rely in part. "

A smell of manure does not always mean someone is growing roses.

AT&T will slash 12,000 from workforce

Cortland Richmond

RIF, QOS and manning

I find myself wondering if this means they will reduce Central Office staff from three to one, and that, on a 12 hour shift. What will that mean for quality of service?

I remember the Great DSL Rush being derailed for lack of installers.

Berlusconi plans to use G8 presidency to 'regulate the internet'

Cortland Richmond

Net Regulation Italian Style

An Italian court as reported in El Reg recently found a blogger to be an unlicensed newspaper subject to criminal penalties. The UK already licenses newspapers and theater's, doesn't it? So you're next.

I expect in the USA that would run into Crown v. Zenger.

FCC plan for mobile contingency fails

Cortland Richmond

Horse Fades in Last Erlang, Bettors lose

This horse may have looked good, but it carried a handicap; two Commissioners, three Congressmen, and a CFO.

Cellular providers aren't public agencies; they are private firms who profit FROM the public. This focus has us losing service in storms, floods, fires and hurricanes because backup power (note: there often IS backup power for a time) and preventive maintenance are costs, not profit. In days of yore, the FCC required telco's to support a defined grade of service to insure calls weren't dropped and dial tone was provided. The cost of doing so, however, is not incosiderable, including basements full of wet-cell batteries with toxic electrolytes generating explosive hydrogen.

It may not have escaped notice that the FCC now only rarely imposes on those it regulates. It is responding to the Will of Congress, some members of which once proposed abolishing the FCC and letting a market-free-for all accomplish the ends regulation (in their view) was meant to serve. Congressmen in turn were responding to complaints from regulated firms that the FCC was imposing costs they should not have to pay. It appears the outgoing White House supported this argument at every agency it ran.

Not that cellular firms are alone. One recalls reports New Orleans police had to break into stores and grab battery-powered FRS (US version of PMR446) radios when their own systems failed. No one could have made a profit on a radio system 100 percent reliable under such circumstances. Engineers have already pointed out they could have done better, but the accountants are in charge.

Boss frogmarches bound employee to cop shop

Cortland Richmond

Irons Irony

Perhaps he'll be paraded through the town centre in (ironically) irons, with a sign reading "BOSS!" around his neck.

'Bloody' is an offensive word, declares ASA

Cortland Richmond

404: Expletive not found

Who IS this B. Luddy?

Honeywell's Kitchen Computer remembered

Cortland Richmond

TRS menu storage

In the 1990's, Tandy/Radio Shack produced a small computer meant to handle all sorts of household tasks, including, yes, meal planning. With a mere 23 watt power supply and an energy efficient monitor, one was expected to leave it in sleep mode so that a mere tap of a key could bring up that delicious strawberry pasta recipe Mom had so thoughtfully e-mailed.

BOFH: The paperless cafeteria

Cortland Richmond

The paperless LOO, now...

...morale builder; we'll provide free coffee, tea and carbonated beverages.

And coin slots to get into the sanitary facilities, that's right... paper extra. Just think, a new profit center.

US rolls out 'Vicinity RFID' to check IDs in moving vehicles

Cortland Richmond

Catching the USSR up

Your documents, comrade! (Only we won't have to ask.)

Next: the propiska (residence permit) and raspredelenie (job assignment).

"I'm sorry, Dave, I can't drive down that road..."

404: Job site not found

Apply within your permitted area.

Smut email hubby claims iPhone glitch

Cortland Richmond

Palindromic Phone Pic?

Lewd did I live; evil I did dwel

US Justice Department free to track mobile phone users

Cortland Richmond

Acronym

USAPAT

RIOT

French record labels sue, um, SourceForge

Cortland Richmond

Pliers and wires and bears, oh my!

Ah yes. Tools use in commission of a crime.

Why aren't makers of pliers and wires being sued in the Hague for Crimes Against Humanity? They sell the torturers tools, after all!

Me, I buy used CD's.

Batman sues Batman over Batman

Cortland Richmond

Bat? Bat, man! Blast!

And what about t Lieutenant Blackadder's batman?

Wait!.... I have a cunning plan...

Clearwire looks to white space for savings

Cortland Richmond

White space = space whited out

The Commission's approving widepread use of spectrum temporarily or locally unoccupied has probably halted TV broadcast expansion in the United States. One need not expect FCC assistance in relief from interference; just look at its cheerleader attitude to BPL (PLT).

Sarah Palin's words get data mined

Cortland Richmond

And even el Reg hasn't noticed

That the letters in "Sarah Palin" can be rearranged to read

"Sharia Plan"

BBC's TV detector vans to remain a state secret

Cortland Richmond

Stealth TV

If you can hear RF noise from your own television on a SW radio, so can detector vans.

To reduce RF from any receiver, one might try these measures, where applicable, legal and safe:

1) Shield the receiver with a metal cabinet wires from which are either shielded (and shields properly connected to the cabinet) and/or filtered so only power and audio can get in and out of the box.

2) Use a filtered, shielded mains power cord. if you can still hear RF noise, add a mains plug powerline filter.

3) Put an RF preamplifier on, with an attenuator at the television connector. This reduces RF that may get to the antenna and be radiated. A high-pass filter just ahead of the preamplifier is a good idea as the amplifier is susceptible to overload.

4) Use headphones. It does no good to be RF quiet if anyone prowling around can tell you're cheating the government. Crystal earphones emit no magnetic fields, but sound terrible -- and one's ear canal gets sore.

The author is not liable for anything that happens as a result of trying these things. Do not work on electrical equipment unless properly qualified.

One might consider whether the cost of evading detection might not be less than paying the fee.

Swiss boffins sniff passwords from (wired) keyboards 65 feet away

Cortland Richmond

Pwwswrod wnot wrok!

There goes the (encrypted) neighborhood. 'Course, the way I type...

Morse Code, anyone?

Holy f**k, Microsoft covers up ‘undesired’ words

Cortland Richmond

Really unspeakable

From unspeakable to inaudible in two clock cycles. Next, the brainwave sensing inthinkerator.

Tri-corders, alpine oxy-pills: Acropocalypse at DARPA

Cortland Richmond

FCC nixes UWB X-Ray spec for the masses

The FCC wants to keep through-wall sensing out of the hands of ordinary folks.

http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/News_Releases/2002/nret0203.html

Son of state lawmaker charged with Palin email hack

Cortland Richmond

No net = no credit cards

>>the court forbid the economics student at the University of Tennessee from using the internet except to check email and do class work.<<

Back to in-person, cash and paper cheque shopping then. Conceivably, no ATM's or automatic deposit, either; go to the bank, go directly to the bank, do not pass GO...

Wireless-data LED lamps to replace lightbulbs - US profs

Cortland Richmond

Smart Lights Dim Brain of Britain

One glaring weakness is that the system will broadcast that "secure" data to nearby radio receivers; the backhaul is just our old friend PLC. Along with that, nearby transmitters will disrupt, reset or shut down the system.

But using coax or twisted pair to lamp info hubs sounds so "ethernet."

This is tbe Beeb...breeep breeep breeep breeep buzzzzz

EU battery rule may zap iPhone, blow away MacBook Air

Cortland Richmond

Bring on the ultracapacitors

Easily removable -- with a surface-mount chip hot-air (360C) repair station. Every home should have one.

German methanol unit wins Pentagon portable-power prize

Cortland Richmond

Running on Sarin, are we?

Hardly! But methanol IS a nerve poison. Here's a snippet and a link to the Canadian government site it comes from:

In one study, symptoms of blurred vision, headaches, dizziness, nausea and skin problems were reported in teachers aides exposed to duplicating fluid containing 99% methanol (Frederick et al., 1984). Individual aides worked as little as 1 hr/day for 1 day a week to 8 hrs/day for 5 days/wk. The workers’ total exposure duration was not mentioned. A dose-response relationship was observed between the self-reported amount...

http://oehha.ca.gov/air/chronic_rels/pdf/67561.pdf

Noel Edmonds defies BBC's jackbooted enforcers

Cortland Richmond

Burn the TV

I haven't owned a TV for decades. I don't watch movies. You got the Beeb's licensure; we got movie and recording industry goons. Fair trade?

Burn the TV.

In an ecologically responsible manner!

Mythbusters RFID episode axed after 'pressure' from credit card firms

Cortland Richmond

Radio is the problem

The radio part is the problem. One you put critical information over the air it becomes vulnerable to interception. If intercepted, it becomes vulnerable to decoding or decryption. Most governments forbid attempts to do either -- except when they do it.

In the United States it is a felony to attempt to recover information even from unsecured radio signals whose modulation parameters have been withheld to prevent it. Saudi Arabia used to (maybe still does) forbid unlicensed private ownership of single-sideband receivers. Governments can also require receiver licenses and restrict the frequencies they are allowed to tune.

But for security, radio -- and by inference, RFID -- is like writing on the wall of the nearest public WC!

For a good time, charge to 1234-...

Ofcom considers termination charges

Cortland Richmond

No cellphone = Anti Social Behavior?

>The Joseph Rowntree Foundation reported that a mobile phone is now essential "to adequately participate in society" - so while some people don't want to actively join in, it's a concern that so many people aren't able to.<

Logically, then, those who refuse to go cellular are committing an Anti-Social act.

Isn't the fine the same as paying for a cellular 'phone? Without getting one?

Gag order lifted for students who hacked subway card

Cortland Richmond

What about the man who never returned? (M.T.A.)

The MTA (now MBTA) stil has HIM locked into a railcar, if the Kingston Trio was to be believed.

You can Google(tm) for the lyrics to M.T.A. to learn about it.

"He's the man Who never returned."

No snapping: Photographers get collars felt

Cortland Richmond

Orwell was off a few years

"1984" WAS set in Britain, though.

AMD hits Intel with Shanghai surprise

Cortland Richmond

Possibly relevent dep't

Or not. But has anyone else noticed that rearranging Nehalem gives us "male hen?"

SMS used to land plane

Cortland Richmond

No electronics needed, actually

There's a specified procedure for loss of radio communications. The pilot flies a radio-out pattern and the tower signals him with a red or green light. In this case, the pilot could have flown the pattern wheels up, gotten a green light, done a low pass to show the tower his wheel were up, gotten a red light, gone around and lowered the wheels, and on the green light after wheels were confirmed down, landed normally.

I may be off on the details; I was in avionics for 15 years but I'm not a pilot.

NASA chief: ISS tests for super plasma space drive

Cortland Richmond

Already been done

Check out this page

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/12/031223222322.htm

and the links under related stories.

Please ignore the net neutrality sideshow haunting Comcast's BitTorrent bust

Cortland Richmond

Comcast, the FCC and the APA

Comcast may well escape FCC regulation this time,if not next. Even the Commission can't impose sanctions for violating a non-existent Rule, and (as yet) there's no rule imposing Net Neutrality. We'd know! The Administrative Procedures Act requires a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, a period of public Comment, Reply Comments, and formal adoption of a Rule. Anyone remember seeing this?

US regulatory agencies do get slaps on the wrist from time to time for "arbitrary and capricious" decisions; look at the recent decision against the FCC at the District of Columbia Court of Appeals:

http://www.arrl.org/news/stories/2008/04/25/10064/?nc=1

IMO, the FCC isn't the palce to look; the Federal Trade Commission might have something to say!

Woman finds Lithuanian living in shed

Cortland Richmond

Well done Kelly

It would have been nice to hear you took him on as a a gardener til he got a new driving job. But I quite understand

Only, the Brownies ALWAYS go away if you thank them!

Cig-lighter electropulse cannons offered to US plods

Cortland Richmond

Holy Tetragenic immobilizers, Batman!

And you thought Tetra was bad.

(see

http://www.chichester.co.uk/chichester/Tetra-mast-brings-car-to.756391.jp }

Church hall bans 'unchristian' yoga for nippers

Cortland Richmond

Half a Yoga?

Is better than nun.

Euro consumers favour plasma over LCD

Cortland Richmond

Plasma vs LCD: Radio Interference an issue

Plasma, alas, is notorious for high power consumption, with its high voltage pixels, and for radio interference; each pixel is an electrical discharge point that produces wideband noise. Of course, if you've already got PLT you might never hear it.

This is the HISS BUZZZ WREABLE WREABLE WREABLE calling!

El Reg issues Satan word alert

Cortland Richmond

Dub dub dub

Doesn't that belong to Hugh Lofting?

Cortland

"Doolitttle -- or do nothing!"

LiveJournal says sorry for blanket sex-talk censorship

Cortland Richmond

419 and Blanket Paedophilia cleanup

This is reminiscent of the Nigerian 419 scams; which section 419 made it a crime to report.

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