HARDWARE: Parking meters are a sign of a strategy

Sunday, September 25, 2011

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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Posted by reinkefj

HARDWARE: One quick ride?

Sunday, August 28, 2011

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.

*** end quote ***

Wow, impressive. Sigh. Too be young again!

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Posted by reinkefj

HARDWARE: Cars become hotspots

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

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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Posted by reinkefj

HARDWARE: HP betrays its Customer

Friday, August 19, 2011

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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HARDWARE: Human Factors and training have to compensate for hardware failure

Thursday, August 11, 2011

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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HARDWARE: Free up tour guides to do other wealth building activities?

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

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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Posted by reinkefj

HARDWARE: Apple’s perfidy continues

Monday, June 27, 2011

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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Posted by reinkefj

IPAD: Free dictionary app

Thursday, May 26, 2011

http://www.tuaw.com/2011/05/26/merriam-webster-dictionary-now-available-on-ipad-for-free/

Merriam-Webster Dictionary now available on iPad for free

by Mike Schramm (RSS feed) on May 26th 2011 at 7:00AM

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It’s certainly not the only dictionary app available, and the renowned Oxford English Dictionary has its own edition available for the iPad already. But that one costs US$54.99, and the ad-supported Webster dictionary benefits not only from a lack of initial cost, but features like voice search, audio pronunciations, a search history and a browse mode that lets you search and learn new words as you like.

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Wow, the inet and it’s “handmaiden” the IPAD are really changing the world.

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HARDWARE: Time Capsule flawed?

Saturday, May 21, 2011

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.

*** end quote ***

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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Posted by reinkefj

HARDWARE: Nintendo 3DS is bad news

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

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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