Reinke Faces Life

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2011/09/27/massapequa-park-to-use-sensors-to-detect-illegally-parked-vehicles/

Massapequa Park To Use Sensors To Detect Illegally Parked Vehicles
Mayor Insists Move Has Nothing To Do With Money, But Villagers Not Impressed
September 27, 2011 9:37 PM

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MASSAPEQUA PARK, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) – Be careful where you decide to park your car.

Massapequa Park will be the first Long Island municipality to use electronic sensors embedded in the street to detect illegally parked vehicles.

Police can quickly slap a $25 fine on the vehicle after the wireless discs notify them of the violation by transmitting a signal to the officers’ cellphones.

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Of course, it has everything to do with money.

But, this brings up an interesting opportunity.

Why can’t cars be instrumented to help the drivers. For example:

(1) Why couldn’t the sensors broadcast a priority message to the car’s radio informing the driver? As opposed to just facilitating a ticket.

(2) Why don’t we have a whole class of infrastructure that makes roads “smarter”? I seem to spend a lot of time sitting at red lights with no cross traffic. Maybe we need a “go on red at your own risk”?

(3) Why don’t roadways “broadcast” their parameters? For example, speed limits should be transmitted to a dashboard gadget; no speed limit signs would be needed. For example, “wrong way” should trigger a dashboard audible alert “stop”.

(4) Why don’t we have inter car communication?

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http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/09/24/2346222/IBM-Seeks-Patent-On-Retailer-Rigged-Driving-Routes

IBM Seeks Patent On Retailer-Rigged Driving Routes
Posted by timothy on Saturday September 24, @07:46PM
from the go-here-you’ll-like-it dept.

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theodp writes

“On IBM’s Smarter Planet, you may drive further than need be to get to your destination. Big Blue’s pending patent for Determining Travel Routes by Using Fee-Based Location Preferences calls for the likes of Walmart, Starbucks, and Best Buy pay a fee in return for having your route calculation service de-optimize driving instructions to make you do a drive-by of their stores, and an additional fee if GPS tracking of your car indicates you actually took the suboptimal route. The same IBM inventors also have a patent pending for Environmental Stewardship Based on Driving Behavior, which calls for yet another fee to be assessed when a retailer-friendly-but-suboptimal route causes your vehicle to enter a congested area and produce more pollution.”

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Wow, if it’s not ONSTAR selling your data, then it’s routing you the “wrong” way.

Seems like a FTC, FCC, DOJ, FBI, and SEC might take an interest in this one.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/19/nyregion/uprooting-the-old-familiar-parking-meter.html?_r=1

The Last Days of the Old Parking Meter

By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM

Published: September 18, 2011

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The city will remove its last decommissioned single-space parking meter in Manhattan on Monday, transportation officials said, the start of a yearlong process that will eventually eliminate all the steel-and-sludge-hued meters in the city.

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The old-fashioned, pole-mounted meter will now yield to the robotlike Meter of Tomorrow: a solar-powered box, equipped with Wi-Fi, that can handle eight parking spaces at once and can shut itself down on free-parking Sundays.

The city’s Transportation Department, which recently accelerated its meter retirement program, says the change will benefit city and citizen alike: the new meters read credit cards, speak seven languages, require less maintenance, and free up room on the sidewalk.

But the death of the classic meter also means an end to some of New York’s smaller pleasures: the satisfying clunk of a coin in its slot, the illicit thrill of finding an extra few minutes still counting down.

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This hardware upgrade demonstrates that the strategy is raising revenue; nothing else.

Parking meters were originally intended to ration limited parking so that a spot couldn’t be tied up all day.

Europeans solved this with a plastic “sundial”. The driver upon parking would put the “sundial” on the dashboard after dialing in the current time. If you cheated and dialed in a later time, then you risk a ticket. If you overstayed, then you risked a ticket.

Zero capital investment; simplicity.

Argh!

Not all hardware upgrades are worth it. If you’re rationing parking spaces, you could use “sundials”. But if you’re raising revenue, then it’s not enough. The upgrade should be issuing tickets. This doesn’t.

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http://matadornetwork.com/sports/the-fastest-radio-controlled-airplane-youve-ever-seen-vid/

The fastest radio-controlled airplane you’ve ever seen [VID]

by CARLO ALCOS on AUGUST 16, 2011

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I’ve never seen anything like this though: according to the YouTube page, this remote-controlled airplane (a Jetcat P160 SE powered scout) is traveling at 586 km/h (366 mph). The RC jet’s designer, Hans Litjens, says in this forum post that the takeoff weight of the plane is 6.5 kg and that the turbine in the above video is not at its maximum RPM. It takes 2L of kerosene which is stored in the wings.

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Wow, impressive. Sigh. Too be young again!

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http://www.wservernews.com/

Vol. 16, #33 – August 22, 2011 – Issue #842
Tech Support For My Car?

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T-Mobile provides the connectivity, and we tried to hack into the system just for fun. The mobile hotspot is protected with WEP, WPA, and WPA2 with the last being the default. But the hotspot reached about 40 feet around the car, and when we looked at the logs, we could see the IP address that we tracked down to a fleet management company. Hm.

But you can see where this goes, right? Cars are loaded with high-tech features and consumers are going to need tech support for all this, and of course all this stuff can be hacked into. Think for a moment about all the code that this requires, and the industry standard of one bug per 1000 lines of code. I can already see it, Patch Tuesday for my car, where they plug in the patch and pray all systems will come back up after the reboot. Hey, it starts! LOL.

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The internet of things is now moving to cars?

In a nation of blinking clocks, one has to question the over computerization of stuff.

Do we know look forward to an ISP bill for each car, each person, each appliance, each … ?

Where does it end?

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http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/hp-punts-on-webos-discontinues-touchpad-cuts-outlook/55386?tag=nl.e019

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HP’s move to shed the PC business as well as discontinue the TouchPad has its risks. For starters, HP will take a reputation hit for launching a TouchPad and then killing it.

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Trust your hardware vendor to “vote you off the island”.

Argh!

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http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Final-words-of-Air-France-crash-pilot-I-cant-control-the-plane-127332423.html

Final words of Air France crash pilot ‘I can’t control the plane’
Black box reveals secrets of crash the killed 228 passengers including three Irish doctors
By KATE HICKEY, IrishCentral.com Editor

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Posted by colkelley on Aug 10, 2011, 10:08 AM EDT

This is a great example of why you do not want to fly with commercial pilots who do not have military aviation experience. Here we have an entire flight crew that could not recognize that they had stalled the aircraft and just kept cutting power and pulling the nose higher and higher – never realizing that their airspeed indicator was wrong because of icing. When I was a Navy Airborne Electronic Warfare Officer we practiced aircraft emergencies and responses at least once on every flight. In my last three years flying jets in the Navy I had three fires in flight, seven emergency field-arrested (cable) landings, and 13 other declared airborne emergencies – and one of them was EXACTLY the same problem with icing and incorrect airspeed. I survived them all because we PRACTICED emergencies incessantly. Air France has a fatal flaw with both hiring pilots and training them…and 228 people died as a result of their failure.

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How do we know that hardware has failed?

And, what do we do to recognize it.

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http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/vatican-hopes-ipod-can-bring-silence-to-romes-churches

Vatican hopes iPod can bring silence to Rome’s churches

By David Kerr

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Rome, Italy, Jun 24, 2011 / 06:10 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Vatican has introduced a new way of keeping silence in their churches while also informing tourists – the iPod.

Today is the first full day of a trial which sees pilgrims to the basilica of St. John Lateran given the audio-guide with a special app explaining the 1,700-year history of the church, which serves as the Pope’s cathedral.

“I can easily say that in Italy there are no examples of experiences like this in religious contexts, probably not even those in museums,” Jelena Jovanovic said to CNA. Her company, Antenna International, created the handheld device.

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Think about the poor guides out of work.

Technology marches on.

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http://www.tuaw.com/2011/06/25/time-capsule-torn-asunder-no-server-grade-hard-drive-inside/

Time Capsule torn asunder, no “server grade” hard drive inside
by Victor Agreda, Jr.Jun 25th 2011 at 4:00PM

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Headline says it all. Caveat emptor.

Must be time to move to Linux.

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http://macreviewzone.com/accessory_prices/time_capsule.php

Time Capsule Description
Updated: Wednesday, May 11, 2011

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One important thing however, is that the earlier Time Capsules have tended to fail due to heat they generate at around 18 months of use. This machine is utterly quiet, because the fan inside is small. Perhaps too small. I have purchased an APC Notebook Cooling Stand ($18 including shipping at MacMall) to set my Time Capsule on to reduce the heat it generates.

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Interesting how my Time Capsule failed. Just like it describes. Ran fine of while. And, then out of the blue, it fails. Never had a piece of electronics fail so early in its life.

Argh!

Do I feel like a fool. And, I was even thinking about buying two more — for my northern and southern estates — until I read this.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I’m beginning to suspect ANY Apple product offerings. They have to know this is flawed.

If it did any good, the Gooferment (i.e., FTC, FCC, and SEC) would be protecting “We, The People” from fraud.

I’m not happy with the MacBookAir which I suspect has WIFI networking issues. The IPAD was obsolete when sold (i.e., IPAD2 was ready to go to market for spring when they were selling IPAD1 as a Christmas present.) The ITOUCH was upgraded so my old ITOUCH isn’t as good as the new ones.

ARGH!

So, all APPLE gear is “NOTRECOMMENDED”. And, obviously, I’m no Apple “fanboy”.

Thus Microsoft’s WINDOZE stinks. And, Apple can’t be trusted.

On to Linux, and maybe Google is the choice de jour.

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http://www.defectivebydesign.org/nintendo

Brick Nintendo before they brick you!

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The Nintendo 3DS comes with Terms of Service (TOS) that should not be accepted. To enforce these terms, Nintendo uses Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology. Because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), users are legally prohibited from modifying their devices to block Nintendo’s nastiness. This combination of legal and technological restrictions makes the Nintendo 3DS dubious, devious, and defective. This page outlines some of the nastier parts of the DRM-enforced TOS.

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I especially don’t like that they can take the pics and use as they see fit. I’d carefully check ANY use of the 3DS before using it. Before even buying it!

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http://www.hardwaregeeks.com/index.php/site/samsung_and_google_introduce_series_5_chromebook

> Samsung and Google introduce Series 5 Chromebook
> Posted by: Michael on Wed, May 11th, 2011

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Today Samsung and Google announced thie Samsung Series 5 Chromebook running on the ChromeOS. I am a huge fan of Samsung notebooks, I love their design and style, but I have a feeling Samsung will regret this product as much as Logitech and Sony regretted their Google TV products.

> Key Specs:

> ● 0.79-inch thin case designed for comfort and mobility

> ● Full-size Chrome keyboard

> ● Oversized multi-touch trackpad

> ● Intel® Dual-core Processor

> ● 16:10 resolution

> ● 12.1-inch SuperBright Display – 36% brighter than standard display

> ● Starts up in less than 10-seconds

> ● Resumes instantly from standby

> ● Up to 8.5 hours battery life*

> ● HD Webcam, built-in digital microphone and stereo speakers

> ● Two USB ports capable of charging mobile phones and accessories, connecting digital cameras and media storage devices

> ● Support for removable media cards (SD, SDHC, MMC) for photos, videos, music and documents

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Hold off any hardware purchases, especially notebooks or tablets, until we see the reviews. These sound like “winners” to me. A game changing piece of hardware.

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http://links.mkt2703.com/servlet/MailView?ms=MzY1NDU1MjES1&r=NTE3MDUxMDQwMgS2&j=OTk5MDgzNzcS1&mt=1&rt=0

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DYMO, a member of the Newell Rubbermaid family of brands.

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You kill the CARDSCAN sync service and then have chutzpah to try and sell me something. Why should I believe ANY promise that you make?

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Why would you trust these people? Ever!

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WD’s MyBookForMac installs but …

… … the Smart Ware software doesn’t install or execute. Argh!

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