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Comment Bill has been tabeled for now (Score 1) 200

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/16610756/hawaii-tables-sweeping-internet-tracking-bill

Surprisingly, all of the positive feedback was from Honolulu law enforcement and prosecutor's departments. Everyone else that gave testimony said "this is STUPID."

I live in Hawaii and will be keeping an eye on this one.

Comment For government services... (Score 1) 35

...but not for regular residents. Been here since 2004. The free wifi hot spots are primarily concentrated in downtown, and a few other random spots. You can see the network map at http://p2.meraki.com/network/kokuawireless ; I wouldn't call this "municipal" wifi in the slightest, seeing as it doesn't really serve anyone except the businesses that have customers coming in or nearby.

In addition, our primary ISPs, Oceanic Time Warner and Hawaiian Telcom are only now offering speeds of 50 mbps down to residential customers, but only "up to" and only in limited service areas. Not exactly up to par with FIOS services available elsewhere.

Comment I work for a WISP (Score 1) 300

I do this for a living, so here's a few more questions (I see some were asked by PCM2 already):

How many buildings are there on the property? How tall is each one? What is the layout (facing each other, central courtyard, one long line)? What is the construction material of the exterior of the buildings? The interior (between rooms)?

Is there a central telephone room that all the buildings link into? Have you run a line tone to make sure?

Check each room to see how many telephone pairs are going in. If there is more than one pair and the n+1 pairs are not in use, then you can throw in and mount a wireless modem in each room. There are vendors that make mounts that are tamper-resistant. The trick is to find out how much penetration the wifi signal from that modem is going to get between each room. Buy one modem, get access to a room, and to all the rooms adjacent (above, below, sides, and across the hall) to see what kind of coverage you can get. Download inSSIDER to help with this analysis.

From this testing you'll be able to determine what kind of signal you're getting in the adjacent rooms, and thereby determine what layout of modems you need.

Get a DSLAM on the property, and get your system up and running.

How you chose to manage the back end is up to you; we use RADIUS. However, since you're managing a single location, you could probably do it with an HP Procurve MSM 710 or even an MSM 313. This will track user logins and sessions independent of any wireless access point that you set up.

Communications

Why Creators Should Never Read Their Forums 221

spidweb writes "One full-time Indie developer writes about why he never goes to online forums discussing his work and why he advises other creators to do the same. It's possible to learn valuable things, but the time and the stress just don't justify the effort. From the article, 'Forums contain a cacophony of people telling you to do diametrically opposite things, very loudly, often for bad reasons. There will be plenty of good ideas, but picking them out from the bad ones is unreliable and a lot of work. If you try to make too many people happy at once, you will drive yourself mad. You have to be very, very careful who you let into your head.'"

Comment Beta to Live (Score 1) 215

Having played the beta, I have to ask this: where were the promised changes during the HUGE amounts of feedback given that the game was going to suck? Reading the beta test boards, people were saying left and right that major game changes needed to be made, or else the game was going to flop.

Square-enix pretty much ignored the majority of the feedback. And now they're scrambling to fix things that, had they listened, could have been fixed well before the game went live.

It's funny.  Laugh.

DHS Official Considered Shock Collars For Air Travelers 673

"The Washington Times is reporting that the DHS wants to replace your boarding pass with a GPS-enabled shock bracelet. Plans for the device include subduing passengers remotely as well as onboard interrogation. There's even a promotional video." Perhaps Paul Ruwaldt (the official named in this story) has been watching "The Coneheads" a bit too much, or not actually flying enough. Expressing interest is not quite the same as ordering mass quantities, but it's scary enough.

New Free-to-Play, FPS-Centric, MMO Hits Closed Beta 43

Nexon America, publisher of MapleStory, has announced the closed beta for a new free-to-play, FPS-centric, MMO. The new "Combat Arms" is planned for a full release later this summer and promises not only the ability to customize your soldier, but also your guns and equipment. "The closed beta test will run exclusively at FilePlanet.com for one week beginning May 30th. Once the game is released to the public, Combat Arms will receive regular content updates, including new weapons, gear, maps, and more free game modes."

Comment all about the mobile phone baby, or is it? (Score 1) 427

it's true... why would anyone aroudn the world want a fucking laptop? no one seems to get the big outside point, sure the internet is dope, sure Doom 3 in africa is a worthy goal for an entrepreneur but fucking COME ON!!

people dont want a laptop, they want to be CONNECTED. you dont need a keyboard if your cellphone can dictate information to you. you dont need to give everyone a solid monitor, an 8in^2 cell screen is plenty to show mufatu the picture of the buffalo's banging on the plain.

where the hell you gonna set a laptop on the serengeti anyway? throw the mobile in your pocket... but laptops do have an advantage, they can be multi user machines. 8 people share a laptop on MTV's whatever show, so a whole village can share 12 of them. you can't rellay multi user a phone. how do you get in touch with someone when the phone they are using that day changes?

Where do you plug the bloody laptop in? power usage in both machines differs. a foot of solar panel can pour enough juice in a car battery to recharge more phones than bones in the nose of new guinan.

Where am I gonna be connected with these laptops? no network no networking. what do we say to the tribes who need 800miles of cable to get hooked up? Wifi shows potential, the same solar panel could juice a local cell tower, and the ranges on wifi routers get stretched every day with less and less power.

but it seems that both the laptop and the mobile phone come closer and closer to fulfilling our desire to communicate without quite locking in on what is needed. imagine a future where the network covers the landscape. little apps are showing up right now, you can ask an expert a question with text messaging at random. the barriers in between our minds are falling.

imagine when the wearables start looking sexy.... all you see is some chunky framed shades, they see people the're connected to through myspace highlighted in pink, with the names, faces, and contacts all available INSTANTLY. asking someone's name triggers a google search, every politico's dream.

world getting crazier every day homie. what did your great grandfather say when he saw that first horseless carraige? could he even comprehend a freeway? parallel parking? rush hour double lane switches with burning hot coffee all over your crotch so you don't miss the onramp to the 101? what about WAL-mart? no truckers no walmart right? Change is in the air.

can you imagine a future where everyone is connected. where holding a phone for 10 minutes reroutes your information so people looking for you can IM, text, video, audio, voice, walkie talkie, whatever? it's expensive to run fiber optic cable everywhere, and dropped laptops get cracked. how about captain genius puts some thought into something radical.... small scale satellite phone packages. mount the dish/server to something tall, point it at the sky. use the local broadcast/mesh network of the phones for local shite, and satellite everything outside the network. or just mesh it over to the satellite dish network over there... one big wireless network, with everyone connected. all your tribe needs to do is come up with the 3k price tag. for fun's sake we'll make it so that anyone with one of grass roots towers can use any grass roots satellite/ mesh network for free. all the tower needs is juice, so hook up the panel to a battery so the tower can run at night. if you wanted to get frisky, have every tribe pony up $200 a year. take all that cash and spend it to upgrade key network points for faster overall network thoroughput. post a 3k online grant to people who post the best hacks to the system's code. fuck microsoft, let's get ALL the big fish. from the telcos to the cable companies to the broadcast media. why pay a reporter when an on site "network animal" vids the scene with his camera, posts the reel to his "satellite tree" which bit torrents the informaiton to all the other animals through the "mesh network canopy". it wasn't the video from the news building that was riveting, it was the pictures from the street below where the first plane hit. I like my information like I like my dope, uncut, straight. don't have the best angle? someone else cammed it, jsut check the database to see what other phones were at that GPS site, did they post anything?

you need to drop the idea that the internet is a thing, or a place. the internet is HERE. it becomes more personal every day. google maps, driving directions, satellite images. you know who could kill microsoft? google, that's who. we pack more functionality into phones every day. wait till they have voice recognition dictation on your phone. fuck a laptop, I don't want to type. I want to take movies, snap photos, and take interviews from anyone anywhere. I want to have perfect strangers ask me to google the price of koi in china vs taiwan. I want to pull over on the side of the road and ask the locals the best place to eat and get directions and dishes and the number of hte place with pics of people sitting there eating. I want to know if the place is packed and if take out is an option. I wanna be CONNECTED, fuck a $100 laptop. take all of that fun stuff and put it in a phone I can take anywhere. I want people's phones to buzz when I get close because my online constantly updating trust rating is fucking skyhigh. I want people to know who I know. seven degrees of seperation man. the whole world is suddenly a lot less scary when your phone lets you know how you know everyone around you. I'm only a stranger until we both have a mutual friend.

the network is coming

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