Zap RFID tags?

[Jeff Liebermann]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Jeff Liebermann

Arthur C Clarke, 'Imperial Earth'. You might claim that the device
described is a PDA, but it does more than that. I have not found a
'desktop computer' mentioned anywhere by anyone, but the canon is so
larger that somewhere....

Well, I sorta stumbled across this web page.
"PDA's in Science Fiction":
http://educ.ahsl.arizona.edu/pda/sf.htm
Arthur C. Clark wrote "Imperial Earth" in 1975, which was well into
the minicomputah to microcomputah transition period. His "minisec"
was a no brainer. The first issue of Byte Magazine was in Oct 1975.
The HP-65 programmable calculator was in 1974. I would say by 1975,
everyone had plenty of clues as to what was coming.

Looking at the list, the first "real" PDA was by Larry Niven and Jerry
Pournelle in 1971. Jerry was a first class geek and bought (or
borrowed) just about anything that resembled a computah to aid his
writing. He also had a long running column in Byte about his
computing experiences. I'll give him credit for an early prediction.
However, none of those listed are what I consider to be "classic"
science fiction, which would generally be prior to the 1950's. Unless
otherwise demonstrated, I still think the "classic" science fiction
writers almost totally missed the mark on personal computing.

 

[Bill Sloman]

Of course, every time a recount was ordered, and then done, Gore LOST
votes. The much ballyhooed miscounts and stolen election are just the
sour grapes of the loser. The election was won by Bush. No doubts, no
contest.

The problem in Florida wasn't so much the miscounting of the votes
that were cast at the elections, but the wholesale winnowing of the
electoral rolls before the election, where a republican-dominated
electoral commission took every opportunity to strike off voters in
districts likely to vote Democrat. If you had the same surname as a
convicted felon and lived in the same area, you were likely to lose
your vote.

The funniest thing is to look at the election geographically. If you
did, you found that 98% of the US was for Bush, you only have a few
counties centered in major cities where Al Gore won. So, he had a
marginal popular vote win, but lost majorly in the electoral college.
All the complaints were about a DEMOCRAT designed ballot in DEMOCRAT
strongholds. They lost, they bitched. End of story.

And why on earth have you still got an electoral college? Its
rationale dates back to the days when travelling or communicating
across the country took weeks. You are supposed to believe in "one
man, one vote" not "one acre, one vote" or whatever the electoral
college members are supposed to represent.

You are in favour of democracy right up the the point where it still
elects Republicans, and not an inch further - a preference which could
be seen more obviously in places like Chile. where Pinochet was your
catspaw.

 

[John Miller]

And why on earth have you still got an electoral college? Its
rationale dates back to the days when travelling or communicating
across the country took weeks. You are supposed to believe in "one
man, one vote" not "one acre, one vote" or whatever the electoral
college members are supposed to represent.

You are in favour of democracy right up the the point where it still
elects Republicans, and not an inch further - a preference which could
be seen more obviously in places like Chile. where Pinochet was your
catspaw.

It sounds like there has been a misunderstanding. The U.S. is not a
democracy, but a republic. That's what the founding fathers intended, and
fortunately, that's the way it still is.

--
John Miller
Email address: domain, n4vu.com; username, jsm

genealogy, n.:
An account of one's descent from an ancestor
who did not particularly care to trace his own.
-- Ambrose Bierce

 

[Dave VanHorn]

On a side window?

The seagulls here are fitted with full-rotation turrets. (;-)

Even seen a great blue heron take off?

It makes sense to me that lighening the wing loading is a good thing, but I
was amazed at the 20-30' long "silly string" ejection.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

It sounds like there has been a misunderstanding. The U.S. is not a
democracy, but a republic. That's what the founding fathers intended, and
fortunately, that's the way it still is.

Then whatis all the fuss of bringing 'democracy' to other countries?
Like Iraq for example?
A dubious double standard, as we are used to from the US.

 

[Charles Edmondson]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 09:00:10 -0700, Charles Edmondson

[snip]

My 91 express lanes system was qualified to 100+ MPH, though!

Question for you Charlie: Wouldn't a bar-code sticker in the window
be a more economic way to assign tolls? Sometimes I think we get so
enamored of technology that we forget the easy ways to do things.

...Jim Thompson

Hi Jim,
Not really. Remember, you have to take into account weather, road dirt,
and of course, customer obstinance! It is too easy to obscure a bar
code and make it unreadable. (of course, someone once thought of having
a bar coded license plate...)

Fun stuff, like we used an IR laser system to detect the presence and
edges of vehicles. Worked great in all our tests. Then, a month after
we had installed it, we had a foggy day with a little wind! Suddenly,
the system saw ALL KINDS of invisible vehicles driving through the
system! Even defeated my direction sensing logic....

Charlie

 

[Jan Panteltje]

There are some small tags that get inserted under the pet's skin,and vets
have a reader that will energize and read data from it.It contains
ownership ID.
But it's strictly close-range.

Yes, but the idea is to have the sensors everywhere coupled to a central
computer with database, so if your pet is nmissing you call them end give
the ID number, and they will reply with : 'its on the corner of 50th and
main, shall we get it for you?

JP

 

[Jan Panteltje]

Well, Asimov was certainly wrong about computahs. His vision was
Multivac, which grew into the galactic computah or one big IBM style
main framis. Remote terminals everywhere, but always connected to the
central computah. Somehow, none of the "classic" science fiction
writers managed to envision the personal computah.

Well, with Microsofts new secure system, all your PCs will be a terminal
connected to their authorization servers.
And if you are a bad guy, you are OUT, like no more credit cards working,
no more news, no more access to anything..
There will be a sort of MS banned groups, poor, in the streets...
Probably living from selling illegal copies of MS windows ;-)
Copyright Jan Panteltje 2004 All Right Reserved.

 

[Jan Panteltje]

Sure:
http://www.chippet.com
http://www.avidid.com
http://www.electronicidinc.com
http://www.homeagainid.com
http://www.identichip.com
http://www.trovan.com

http://directory.google.com/Top/Shopping/Pets/Supplies/ID_Tags/?tc=1/

When the US cellular conglomerates are done building their monopolies
and get E911 and location based services working, we will probably
find a bunch of cell phones for pet collars. Sigh...

'have your pet call home' hehe

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

Even seen a great blue heron take off?

It makes sense to me that lighening the wing loading is a good thing, but I
was amazed at the 20-30' long "silly string" ejection.

Was it a JATO system?

 

[Paul Hovnanian P.E.]

On Mon, 19 Apr 2004 09:00:10 -0700, Charles Edmondson

[snip]

My 91 express lanes system was qualified to 100+ MPH, though!

Question for you Charlie: Wouldn't a bar-code sticker in the window
be a more economic way to assign tolls? Sometimes I think we get so
enamored of technology that we forget the easy ways to do things.

...Jim Thompson

Hi Jim,
Not really. Remember, you have to take into account weather, road dirt,
and of course, customer obstinance! It is too easy to obscure a bar
code and make it unreadable. (of course, someone once thought of having
a bar coded license plate...)

Bar codes don't really buy you much in the way of target acquisition.
Once you have found the bar code or a license plate and manage to read
either, the computational problem of character recognition isn't much
more difficult than reading the bar codes.

Cars already have license plates, so money doesn't need to be spend
deploying additional identification devices to vehicles.

 

[Rich Grise]

As a card caryying Libertarian, i object to your use of the term
"both parties." There are more than two.

As a card-carrying Libertarian myself, I'm a little surprised,
maybe even a little disappointed, that you couldn't figure this
one out, Guy.

(i.e. "both parties are idiots" isn't _supposed_ to include
Libertarians.)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Dave VanHorn]

Was it a JATO system?

It was impressive, and reminded me of the Heywood Banks song of the same
theme, "If Pigs Had Wings".

 

[Paul Burridge]

Yes, but the idea is to have the sensors everywhere coupled to a central
computer with database, so if your pet is nmissing you call them end give
the ID number, and they will reply with : 'its on the corner of 50th and
main, shall we get it for you?

Yeah, and in 20 years' time, we'll all have them inserted in *us* by
order of the government. The political argument for so doing will be
incredibly hard to resist, I'm sorry to say.

 

[Richard Henry]

As a card-carrying Libertarian myself, I'm a little surprised,
maybe even a little disappointed, that you couldn't figure this
one out, Guy.

(i.e. "both parties are idiots" isn't _supposed_ to include
Libertarians.)

I was considering joining the Libertarian Party until I found out some of
their more idiotic platform positions, such as elimination of the INS.

 

[Richard Henry]

Yeah, and in 20 years' time, we'll all have them inserted in *us* by
order of the government. The political argument for so doing will be
incredibly hard to resist, I'm sorry to say.

"What do you have to hide?"

"Aren't you patriotic?"

"You must be a terrorist."

etc.

 

[Spehro Pefhany]

"What do you have to hide?"

"Aren't you patriotic?"

"You must be a terrorist."

etc.

Twenty years or one more major terrorist incident in the US, whichever
comes first.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

[Frank Bemelman]

Yeah, and in 20 years' time, we'll all have them inserted in *us* by
order of the government. The political argument for so doing will be
incredibly hard to resist, I'm sorry to say.

Vote for Bush' type of politicians, and you can have that
gadget within ten years.

 

[John Woodgate]

I read in sci.electronics.design that Dave VanHorn <[email protected]>
wrote (in <[email protected]>) about 'Zap RFID tags?',

Even seen a great blue heron take off?

No, we don't have them in Britain.

It makes sense to me that lighening the wing loading is a good thing, but I
was amazed at the 20-30' long "silly string" ejection.

Birds have surprising powers in that area. Some humming bird chicks keep
the nest clean by firing up to 20 feet. A human with the corresponding
scaled-up power could defecate into low Earth orbit.

 

[James Beck]

I was considering joining the Libertarian Party until I found out some of
their more idiotic platform positions, such as elimination of the INS.

OK, that's one plank. Just look at what the "other" two say and compare
that to what they actually do. For all the good it has been doing the
INS might as well be eliminated, BUT that is not the point. Do you
really think that if the Libertarians were to control the House or
Senate that the first order of business would be that? Doubtful.
I would think the first order of business should be the elimination of
the taxpayer funded popularity contests known as the primaries.

Jim