Here is a short note about our de-wiring the Croisette in Cannes.

For over a year, I had been operating a hotspot over one corner of the old port of Cannes. From there I was able to shoot down on the port, but not over the Palais with the legal 20dB signal. Actually, it was only really reliable for someone who had high gain on the connecting yacht…which there were only a few of at the time.

But I was able to get one high-profile CEO’s yacht connected during the Film Festival a few years ago, among others. And, they were able to grab the signal from across the bay in the newer Port Canto.

The next year the engineers for his new boat asked for more service, but couldn’t pick it up well. I came aboard and found out why. I attached a medium gain antenna to a Buffalo WiFi to Ethernet Converter and found nearly 100 signals available in the bay. Long story short, I eventually attached a yagi, pointed it at my site, found the cleanest channel and got them happy.

One of the channels that was broadcasting was a leftover from a previous project. A partner company bought rights from the city for several spots along the Croisette including the Mayor’s building, and a couple museums and hotels. We wired up the spots with antennas and repeaters from a reputable company, and got everything working using my site as the source. The big introduction was to be the GSM show. The day before everything checked out; you could walk anywhere on the Croisette and download with up to 3 Meg service (which we then clamped down so no one could take it all.)

That worked fine until about 10AM the day of the show. Then, while online downloading mail or a website with no problem, suddenly you would start getting errors and eventually, the connection would stall. Turns out that as every booth in the Palais lit up their private wifi site, as well as those set up in private sites in the hotels, solid connections became impossible. The hardware supplier couldn’t figure it out, whether it was the mesh taking the hit, or what it seemed to me; that there were just too many signals floating around in too little space. I’ve had the same thing happen in convention sites, where too many booth sites compete against the official supplier.

We rerouted the mesh to take signal from a different source, but it made no difference. In those days it wasn’t legal to put 802.11a into open air spaces, and as that was the manufacturers only solution after months of trying to work with the ‘g’ signal, we were forced to take down the system. I eventually closed my site over Cannes as well. Whether the manufacturer has found that ‘a’ solves all, I don’t know. I suspect that we are in for a lot of saturation problems when these city-wide sites get up.

WiFi Interference « David Strom’s Web Informant

# Includes 12VDC Power Supply
# Receive Bandpass Filter
# 18 dB Receive Gain
# Streaming Media Ready
# 3 Watt Amp Models
# Cast Aluminum Construction
# Durable UV-Stable Finish
# Power and Transmit LEDs
# HyperLink NEMA Enclosure Mounting Available
# 1 Year Limited Warranty

Export only but, uh, wow. They have amps up to 25 Watts for Wifi.

2.4 GHz 802.11b Compatible Bi-Directional Indoor Wi-Fi� Amplifier with AGC for WLAN Systems

The risks associated with cycling decrease dramatically when more cyclists are on the road, and especially when those cyclists obey traffic laws. This second point is hammered home in this bizarre but brilliant 1963 bike safety film, “One Got Fat” (the eagle — or is it monkey? — eyed among you will have recognized a clip from this film in the Freakonomics video “Does Sport Cause Crime“).

One thing “One Got Fat” doesn’t mention is helmet use — helmets weren’t widely used until the 1970s, and controversy remains over how effective they are in reducing bike fatalities. (Full disclosure: I bike to work whenever possible, and wear a helmet, an adherent to what a few cyclists I know like to call the Cult of the Styrofoam Talisman.)

Hahaaha that video is funny.

Will Bicycling to Work Get You Killed? - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog

Apple Computer, The Homosexual’s Favorite

Friends,

The other day Sam asked me to comment about Apple computers. It’s funny that I had only recently been thinking and praying about these queerest of computers. It certainly is true that Apple computers are very popular amongst the homosexual communities, the fact that these computers are so popular indicates the depths to which our great nation has sunk to.

Hah.

STR : THE FREEDOM BLOG : Apple Computer, The Homosexual’s Favorite

When I first started using Quark XPress 6.5 in Mac OS X here at my new job, it took a while to work out the kinks for a rather complex project (doing layout for a journal w/ a 24 hr. turn-around), to the point that I actually put up a ``crash log'' outside of my cubicle, so that people could gauge my mood before entering. It's been a year now, and while I've gotten the project in question worked out (had to train myself _never_ to undo re-sizing a text box &c.), the totals might be interesting to people:

2006:
Quark XPress: 207 crashes (as many as 9 per day)
Adobe Illustrator: 25
InDesign: 35
PhotoShop: 15
Acrobat: 65
Microsoft Word: 23
Macromedia FreeHand: 9
Mac OS X: 14 (this includes Mac OS X apps like Mail.app and Safari.app)

The totals for this year are a bit more reasonable --- Quark XPress v6.5: 26, v7: 46 (I had to move the afore-mentioned journal over to Quark 7 after a re-design and that involved a new set of things to work-around) --- but I find Mac OS X overall reliable and workable as an environment (thought not as nice, consistent and synergistic as NeXTstep).

William

A kind of funny crash log.

OS X Crash Log: Apple Adds Memory Randomization To Leopard

Camping – an Exciting Adventure for Young and Old

Imagine it’s early in the evening and you and a small group of friends are trying to make a campfire. You collect dry woods, put everything on a pile and then hope that the wind isn’t too strong to blow it out immediately. You are successful and now gather around the fire. Everyone packs out their food and soon, the typical smell of barbecue hangs in the air.

For dessert, you all brought marshmallows, crackers and chocolate. You hear the surf break on the cliffs, the wind in the trees, birds sing, taste the salt in the breezy air and see the sun setting over the ocean. It’s a perfect day out in nature, at a campground on the northeastern coast of Oahu.

After the barbecue, you can go for a night swim, walk around, or play card games on the beach. At night, millions of stars appear in the sky. It’s very different than the sky in town with all the city lights shining brightly.

There are more than a dozen beach parks on Oahu that allow camping. One of the best campgrounds on the windward coast is the Malaekahana State Recreation Area (Kahuku Section), between Kahuku and Laie, about 55 yards (50m) off Kamehameha Highway, directly on the beach. There are three campgrounds at Malaekahana Bay. This one is the northernmost of the three.

Camping on Oahu. You can camp where they film Lost!

Oahu - Camping - Malaekahana Campground - 1552x963 [1552x830]

Yes, it’s hardly Crysis, but that’s not the point. What it is, is a way for people who’ve been defeated by the most persistent, unrelenting nemesis in the D&D Monster Manual to start playing again. Amidst a lot of people missing the point, Baylor over at the Gleemax forums has a critical hit: “I think the real target of this are people who can’t play D&D anymore. Like myself. I have two kids and I don’t have time to get together with friends anymore. I only have a few hours after they go to bed. I will finally be able to shelve MMOs and play the game I love again.” What defeats most heroes, simply, is time and its little henchman lack-of-access. If I were to get on the GM hat again, the most likely group of people I’d like to do it for are Jim (Upstairs), Hobbes (5 minutes walk away), my brother (London) and Kid-with-Knife (Vancouver). Pushing D&D in this way is both an admission of the problems of modern (adult) living while using modernity to circumvent it.

This looks cool enough that I might... actually play AD&D a few hours a week with it, something I haven't done since... highschool?

Rock, Paper, Shotgun » Blog Archive » Dungeons & Dragons Offline Online

This site uses census data to report on demographics of zipcodes.

ZIPskinny - Get the Skinny on that ZIP

Third Party Applications on the iPhone

Let me just say it: We want native third party applications on the iPhone, and we plan to have an SDK in developers’ hands in February. We are excited about creating a vibrant third party developer community around the iPhone and enabling hundreds of new applications for our users. With our revolutionary multi-touch interface, powerful hardware and advanced software architecture, we believe we have created the best mobile platform ever for developers.

It will take until February to release an SDK because we’re trying to do two diametrically opposed things at once—provide an advanced and open platform to developers while at the same time protect iPhone users from viruses, malware, privacy attacks, etc. This is no easy task. Some claim that viruses and malware are not a problem on mobile phones—this is simply not true. There have been serious viruses on other mobile phones already, including some that silently spread from phone to phone over the cell network. As our phones become more powerful, these malicious programs will become more dangerous. And since the iPhone is the most advanced phone ever, it will be a highly visible target.

Some companies are already taking action. Nokia, for example, is not allowing any applications to be loaded onto some of their newest phones unless they have a digital signature that can be traced back to a known developer. While this makes such a phone less than “totally open,” we believe it is a step in the right direction. We are working on an advanced system which will offer developers broad access to natively program the iPhone’s amazing software platform while at the same time protecting users from malicious programs.

We think a few months of patience now will be rewarded by many years of great third party applications running on safe and reliable iPhones.

Steve

P.S.: The SDK will also allow developers to create applications for iPod touch. [Oct 17, 2007]

Apple - Hot News - Developer Kits for iPhone

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
• Ten things you may not know about images on Wikipedia •
Jump to: navigation, search
The Simpsons episode
"Simpson Tide"
Episode no. 197
Prod. code 3G04
Orig. airdate March 29, 1998
Show runner(s) Al Jean
Mike Reiss
Written by Joshua Sternin
Jeffrey Ventimilia
Directed by Milton Gray
Chalkboard "My butt does not deserve a website"
Couch gag A parody of Rocky & Bullwinkle
Guest star(s) Rod Steiger
Bob Denver
DVD
commentary Al Jean
Mike Reiss
Season 9
September 21, 1997 – May 17, 1998

1. The City of New York vs. Homer Simpson
2. The Principal and the Pauper
3. Lisa's Sax
4. Treehouse of Horror VIII
5. The Cartridge Family
6. Bart Star
7. The Two Mrs. Nahasapeemapetilons
8. Lisa the Skeptic
9. Realty Bites
10. Miracle on Evergreen Terrace
11. All Singing, All Dancing
12. Bart Carny
13. The Joy of Sect
14. Das Bus
15. The Last Temptation of Krust
16. Dumbbell Indemnity
17. Lisa the Simpson
18. This Little Wiggy
19. Simpson Tide
20. The Trouble with Trillions
21. Girly Edition
22. Trash of the Titans
23. King of the Hill
24. Lost Our Lisa
25. Natural Born Kissers

List of all The Simpsons episodes

"Simpson Tide" is the nineteenth episode of The Simpsons' ninth season. The episode first aired on March 29, 1998. The episode title puns on the film Crimson Tide. Guest starring Rod Steiger as Captain Tenille, Bob Denver as himself and Michael Carrington as the Drill Sargeant. This was the last episode Al Jean and Mike Reiss show-ran together, although both would return in season 13 with Jean as show runner and Reiss as producer.

Best episode ever.

Simpson Tide - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia