Slashdot Mirror

FCC rules for Digital Television mandate that broadcasters must transmit at least one free over-the-air stream in their digital signal to the public just like current TV. However, they can charge for ancillary services like internet (~19 mbps!), pay-per-view, etc. that are in parallel streams. So if you buy the receiver you'll probably need a descrambler and subscription to access the premium content.

Check this list to see what stations are operating in your area. Call them and ask what kinds of services they will be offering. many stations simulcast their regular lineup as part of the FCC transition program.

While I agree that the ARRL has a vested interest in this debate, I think it is fair to say that they know a thing or two about interference (see this link for instance). Not only has this been shown to interfere, think of the interference to BPL. Allowing this to go forward will force something to give.

This isn't just a local problem either. Have a look at this report from the ECC (they are a European agency) [NOTE: Sorry, it is in MS Word format]. They clearly believe that interference potential in the frequency range up to 30 MHz "are such that the risk of interference to radio services cannot be limited to a national or regional scale" (see the section entitled "General Conclusions of the report). This is a 112 page report, and while I freely admit I have not read all of it, they clearly say that this won't be a local problem, so just leaving the city isn't going to help. They go on to say that complete interference level restrictions won't work since so many devices currently give off interference in these ranges, but that the BPL (Called PLT in this report) will give "much higher" level of interference.

Several people in this tread have argued that amateur radio is a "dinosaur" or lived passed its usefulness. Many have already pointed out the problems with this. In many parts of the country, HF radio is the only reliable form of communication. In emergency situations HAM radio has proved itself many times over. Have a look here for instance. FEMA have defended the need for amateur radio on numerous occasions.

There is more at stake here than HAM. Have a look at this chart. Of particular interest are the chunks that are noted as "Radio Astronomy". Have a look at this report. Of note here is that the radio astronomy bands have issues with interference already. Solar and molecular cloud observations fall in these wavelengths. Do we really want to add to the pollution of the electromagnetic spectrum? The BPL system will also be subject to interference. This seems like a lose-lose situation to me.

While I agree that the ARRL has a vested interest in this debate, I think it is fair to say that they know a thing or two about interference (see this link for instance). Not only has this been shown to interfere, think of the interference to BPL. Allowing this to go forward will force something to give.

This isn't just a local problem either. Have a look at this report from the ECC (they are a European agency) [NOTE: Sorry, it is in MS Word format]. They clearly believe that interference potential in the frequency range up to 30 MHz "are such that the risk of interference to radio services cannot be limited to a national or regional scale" (see the section entitled "General Conclusions of the report). This is a 112 page report, and while I freely admit I have not read all of it, they clearly say that this won't be a local problem, so just leaving the city isn't going to help. They go on to say that complete interference level restrictions won't work since so many devices currently give off interference in these ranges, but that the BPL (Called PLT in this report) will give "much higher" level of interference.

Several people in this tread have argued that amateur radio is a "dinosaur" or lived passed its usefulness. Many have already pointed out the problems with this. In many parts of the country, HF radio is the only reliable form of communication. In emergency situations HAM radio has proved itself many times over. Have a look here for instance. FEMA have defended the need for amateur radio on numerous occasions.

There is more at stake here than HAM. Have a look at this chart. Of particular interest are the chunks that are noted as "Radio Astronomy". Have a look at this report. Of note here is that the radio astronomy bands have issues with interference already. Solar and molecular cloud observations fall in these wavelengths. Do we really want to add to the pollution of the electromagnetic spectrum? The BPL system will also be subject to interference. This seems like a lose-lose situation to me.

Ah, so I should be writing to the Department of Commerce? Secretary Evans then? Anyone else there to contact? I suppose I should CC my senators and reps as well.

And let's all remember to Join the EFF.

> "When its controlled by the government, it will be lobbied into a capitalist tool of consumer exploitation. Profit at its best"

Wake up, it's already happened. At the end of one meeting 4 years ago the head trademark lawyer for IBM bragged they'd spend 2 years of their $30M a year Washington lobbying budget to make sure no new top level domains had been created to protect their intellectual property interests. Dave Farber was at that meeting (as was Vint "Darth" Cerf).

Roger Cochetti, then a VP of IBM, helped Ira Magazier pick the "interim" ICANN board in secret - when that was supposed to have been done by the internet community. Cochetti is now an NSI VP and figures prominently behind the scenes of ICANN.

The IFWP effort, started in Becky Burr's (US Department of Commerce who have oversight over ICANN) office at the suggestion of Kathy Kleinman and Mikki Barry and had 3 meetings worldwide - Reston Va, Geneva, Singapore to determins consensus points to use as guidelines to create bylaws and elect a board for the organization that would replace IANA. While this was going on Cochetti and Magaziner were running around in secret getting the likes of Ether Dysan and Mike Roberts on board. Mike Single handedly tanked the IFWP effort (notice he has Farbers ear) and became the first president of ICANN and his organization was the recipeint of the "intellectual infrastructure fund" - the domain tax fund that we all paid into back then, and and .edu. Nice little payoff. Esther was by her own admission clueless about the whole thing and did nothing. It's probably just a concidence she was in IBM commercials at the time.

(" Esther Dyson says that she was approached by Roger Cochetti of IBM and Ira Magaziner in Aspen, Colorado and asked if she would be interested in joining the ICANN Board. The IFWP wrap up was finally completely derailed by ICANN's refusal to participate in the meeting."

ICANN was created to do one thing: make new tlds at a time when it seemed (at least to the US government) the US government had to step in to solve the war between the IAHC camp (who had just been shut down) and the alt root camp (who seemed to be making progress). Magaziner met with us all and created the "white paper" that was going to create 7 new tlds immediatly. Trademark lawyers and the EU freaked and when it was revised as the "green paper" it had punted to "ICANN will create a method to elect a board and a process to create new tlds". Instead they spent 3 years futzing around with the UDRP and other things trademaek laywrs wanted and didn't get round to new tlds till the fall of 2000 and it must have had all of ten minutes thought put into it and was intentinally lame as hell. To this day the new tlds that were picked are still viewed by ICANN as a "feasability study" to deteremine the effect of net stability when adding new tlds. Never mind in that period 100 new cctlds were added almost all of which were commmercial in nature.

Then you have the "Government Advisory Committe" the well named GAC of ICANN. Governments of the world get to meet in secret and "advise" ICANN.

Govrernments and the Tradmark Lobby have already coopted ICANN. It's foolish to worry that the ITU/UN will let this happen if they're in control, it's already happened.

So, don't move control of the internet to ineffective treaty organizations, move it to you

> "When its controlled by the government, it will be lobbied into a capitalist tool of consumer exploitation. Profit at its best"

Wake up, it's already happened. At the end of one meeting 4 years ago the head trademark lawyer for IBM bragged they'd spend 2 years of their $30M a year Washington lobbying budget to make sure no new top level domains had been created to protect their intellectual property interests. Dave Farber was at that meeting (as was Vint "Darth" Cerf).

Roger Cochetti, then a VP of IBM, helped Ira Magazier pick the "interim" ICANN board in secret - when that was supposed to have been done by the internet community. Cochetti is now an NSI VP and figures prominently behind the scenes of ICANN.

The IFWP effort, started in Becky Burr's (US Department of Commerce who have oversight over ICANN) office at the suggestion of Kathy Kleinman and Mikki Barry and had 3 meetings worldwide - Reston Va, Geneva, Singapore to determins consensus points to use as guidelines to create bylaws and elect a board for the organization that would replace IANA. While this was going on Cochetti and Magaziner were running around in secret getting the likes of Ether Dysan and Mike Roberts on board. Mike Single handedly tanked the IFWP effort (notice he has Farbers ear) and became the first president of ICANN and his organization was the recipeint of the "intellectual infrastructure fund" - the domain tax fund that we all paid into back then, and and .edu. Nice little payoff. Esther was by her own admission clueless about the whole thing and did nothing. It's probably just a concidence she was in IBM commercials at the time.

(" Esther Dyson says that she was approached by Roger Cochetti of IBM and Ira Magaziner in Aspen, Colorado and asked if she would be interested in joining the ICANN Board. The IFWP wrap up was finally completely derailed by ICANN's refusal to participate in the meeting."

ICANN was created to do one thing: make new tlds at a time when it seemed (at least to the US government) the US government had to step in to solve the war between the IAHC camp (who had just been shut down) and the alt root camp (who seemed to be making progress). Magaziner met with us all and created the "white paper" that was going to create 7 new tlds immediatly. Trademark lawyers and the EU freaked and when it was revised as the "green paper" it had punted to "ICANN will create a method to elect a board and a process to create new tlds". Instead they spent 3 years futzing around with the UDRP and other things trademaek laywrs wanted and didn't get round to new tlds till the fall of 2000 and it must have had all of ten minutes thought put into it and was intentinally lame as hell. To this day the new tlds that were picked are still viewed by ICANN as a "feasability study" to deteremine the effect of net stability when adding new tlds. Never mind in that period 100 new cctlds were added almost all of which were commmercial in nature.

Then you have the "Government Advisory Committe" the well named GAC of ICANN. Governments of the world get to meet in secret and "advise" ICANN.

Govrernments and the Tradmark Lobby have already coopted ICANN. It's foolish to worry that the ITU/UN will let this happen if they're in control, it's already happened.

So, don't move control of the internet to ineffective treaty organizations, move it to you

We've talked about this before. Broadband over power lines is not only a threat to Amateur Radio but to other communication services including government and homeland security. Plus, it's highly susceptible to ingress interference from licensed radio stations as well.

The US GDP for 2003 was roughly $10,479Billion. Of this the entire software industry was $181Billion (2%) Imports in total were $1,200Billion

It seems there's still lots of people doing things for a living. Ask one if they need help.

People seems to forget that for most countries Domestic trade has always been and probably will continue to be the main focus of economic activity.

The US GDP for 2003 was roughly $10,479Billion. Of this the entire software industry was $181Billion (2%) Imports in total were $1,200Billion

It seems there's still lots of people doing things for a living. Ask one if they need help.

People seems to forget that for most countries Domestic trade has always been and probably will continue to be the main focus of economic activity.

Not in the United States as a whole. Some states might give one that right, but I don't know which ones they are.

The closest thing the US as a whole has is Safe Harbor, but this only applies to personal data on persons in the EU/EEA and a few other countries that is sent to the US.

Does this help? Iraq Sanctions

Three words:

Feds Hate Encryption!

Why?

They consider encryption to be a weapon/munitition and subject to onerous, labarynthine regulations when used in products that leave the USA/Canada....

It appears encryption is tolerated now thanks to pioneers like PRZ/PGP because the majority of network traffic is still unencrypted, in the clear, an eminantly collectable and analyzable....

If most/all worldwide network traffic goes encrypted, the Feds (or any country's system of government for that matter) will $#!+ bricks, outlaw/criminalize *ALL* non-approved use of encryption (even rot13), and quite possibly pull the plug on the Internet to prevent unauthorized encryption use. Then it's back to the nostalgically inefficient days of dial-in BBSes....

Do you wan't a future like that?

I don't.

There has to be a way to stop email spam without using encryption....

Link works fine from here, but you can always get there yourself from here -- but more amusing is that ``everywhere else you look' seems to be `some random lefty think tank which doesn't identify its donors. Jhon has already provided multiple other sources which disagree with you.

I'd say the readers of this thread should have no trouble judging your ``my lefty think tank's numbers are right, everyone else is part of the conspiracy!'' defense for themselves...

Were you to look at the figures for real GDP growth, you would see that the GDP shrunk half a percent in 2000Q3.

Tht URL doesn't work, and I can't verify your assertion. Everything I find says real, seasonally-adjusted, revised GDP grew +0.6% in 3Q2000.

You do realize you're quoting unweighted figures, right?

Were you to look at the figures for real GDP growth, you would see that the GDP shrunk half a percent in 2000Q3. If you go to the monthly figures, you will likewise see that the real GDP shrunk steadily through January of 2001, even though Bush was not sworn in until the end of the third week of January, and did not have an economic team in place for some time thereafter.

I had worried that one major misunderstanding on your part per post was too high a rate for you to keep up. I'm somehow gratified to see that it wasn't.

Good day.

your assertion that we shouldn't listen to the official economic figures

I made no such assertion. In fact, the revised figures directly from the Department of Commerce agree that real GDP grew in 3Q2000 and grew twice as fast in 4Q2000. They do not agree with the Texas newspaper Jhon quoted.

Why have you stopped wishing me a good day?

This one is from the NTIA (who puts out that chart)
dated March 1996

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.pdf

The NTIA (part of the Department of Commerce) has a wall-sized poster which shows the frequency allocations from 3 kHz all the way up to 300 GHz... you can either buy one from the Feds for $7.50, or go here and download it as a PDF file.

only problem is in the US these frequencies are not for broadcasting TV. 7Mhz is for Amateur radio frequencies. US Radio Frequency Allocations

The government has been announcing both an increase in total jobs and a decrease in unemployment filings for a few months now. Neither necessarily precludes a reduction in high-tech jobs. The spin-meisters claim the economy is improving, just not for us.

The problem with getting a honest accounting of the state of our economy is that there is no measure which is not inherently politicized. It is very easy to consider/ignore factors to bolster your numbers. That fact itself has become highly politicized, as Paul Krugman of the New York Times (watch as my liberal bias comes out) has reported recently.

It's difficult to say. Recent figures indicate that the real GDP, consumer income, and corporate profits all rose inq3 2003, but at the same time, the dollar is falling to new lows against other major currencies, which will eventually make it difficult to attract the foreign investing the US needs to balance the trade deficit.

It isn't current, but here is a chart (PDF)
that shows how the radio bands were divided up in 1996.

A good paper, but a bit old, is Filtering Software: The Religious Connection by Nancy Willard.

It shows that many of the filtering products are designed by certain churches and reflect their beliefs. That's OK for home use of those faiths but not so good when used in a public library. The thing is, like Symantic, they refuse to divulge their slant.

the economy started tanking WHILE CLINTON WAS IN OFFICE, LONG BEFORE THE ELECTION.

From Bureau of Economic Analysis, U.S. Department of Commerce; Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ;Percent change from preceding period, XLS

GDP percent change based on current dollars
GDP percent change based on chained 1996 dollars

1998q1 7,2 6,1
1998q2 3,3 2,2
1998q3 5,6 4,1
1998q4 7,8 6,7
1999q1 4,9 3,0
1999q2 3,5 2,0
1999q3 6,5 5,2
1999q4 8,9 7,1
2000q1 5,7 2,6
2000q2 7,3 4,8
2000q3 2,2 0,6
2000q4 3,2 1,1
2001q1 3,0 -0,6
2001q2 0,9 -1,6
2001q3 1,9 -0,3
2001q4 2,2 2,7
2002q1 6,5 5,0
2002q2 2,5 1,3
2002q3 5,1 4,0
2002q4 3,2 1,4
2003q1 3,8 1,4
2003q2 4,3 3,3
2003q3 9,0 7,2

But whats really anoying about Bush is the tax cuts to the rich. Cutting taxes in the way Bush has done is a very ineffective way of helping a economy. The idea that a rich person that gets to pay less tax automaticly wil start investing those money instead just does not cut it.

And there will be a platform for some of the candidates:
-It's unlikely that the economy will recover enough and create enough jobs for it not to be a issue. -Iraq....
Plus trhere will allways be political issues that the democrats and republicans can argue about.

In other words, Windows and Office costs a third of your annual income. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis the per capital annual income of the US in 2002 was $30,832.

Therefore, Windows and Office would cost you a staggering $10,277. It is not surprising that piracy is rampant!

Also assuming Thailand has the same per capital annual income as Vietnam, then even when Microsoft reduced the price down to $40 it still would cost slightly a nasty $3,083 in the US.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. Finally, complain to the media. If they get enough letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

Remember, VeriSign is busy telling them its side of the story. We need to tell them ours!

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member. Plus any of the other members you feel like contacting.
5. The Federal Trade Commission, which hears consumer complaints.
6. Your U.S. Representative
7. Your Senators
8. Your Governor
9. Your State Legislators
10. ICANN's wildcard comment address
11. VeriSign itself
12. Finally, complain to the media. If they get lots of letters on a topic, they'll run stories. Try the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fox News, CBS News, ABC News, NBC News and MSNBC.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member.

By email, phone, fax, telegram, or letter (or better, several of these), let them know what you think. These are the people who can give Verisign reasons to change their behavior.

1. The Department of Commerce; VeriSign's contract to operate .com and .org was originally with them.
2. The Federal Communications Commission, which oversees telecommunications.
3. The Senate Commerce Committee's Subcommittee on Communications; contact the committee itself, the chairman, the ranking member, and any of the other members you'd like.
4. The House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, including the committee itself, the chairman, the vice-chairman, and the ranking member.

By email, phone, fax, telegram, or letter (or better, several of these), let them know what you think. These are the people who can give Verisign reasons to change their behavior.

Ultimately, these guys tell ICANN what to do, so it can't hurt to drop them an email too. Their site is here (I think that's a good page to start with - if someone finds a better one, feel free to reply). I've personally mailed ICANN and also the address listed on this page. If enough people make noise about this (polite noise, I should add), with a bit of luck they'll do something about it.

Geothermal is great. In Iceland.

You don't have to be in a geologically active zone to use geothermal. Denmark has no earthquakes or volcanoes but geothermal heating looks feasible in many places. A plant is under construction in Copenhagenand one is already running in Thisted

Problem is, not much tangible progress has been made in the last 15-20 years, however. For instance, the CAFE standard for passenger cars is 27.5 mpg, and that hasn't changed since 1986. The increase in the use of SUV's and pickup trucks certainly hasn't helped either. Heck, I remember my dad making a presentation to my 3rd grade class on the electric van back in 1978, but 25 years later that's not much closer to commercial viability. If you listen to the auto companies, however, they still keep saying "only a few more years..."

Wifi is not a problem, evidently. Understandable, given its short range.

Ummm, no. Here's a frequency chart of the radio spectrum. People seem to think everyone uses all frequencies and it's one big radio spectrum blob. Radio spectrum resembles IP space, except in this case you can't create more of it. Print out the chart on a big plotter, hang it on the wall and impress your techie friends, and consult it when a wireless article is posted on Slashdot. :-)

K3NG

Check this out..

There's a link there for the PDF of the spectrum allocation. Pretty much "DC to Daylight". The piece that BPL is going to destroy covers a lot of Ham allocations. But it also covers things like:
Maritime Mobile
Aeronautical Mobile
Space Research
Standard Time Signals
Shortwave Broadcast
Radio Astronomy
Land Mobile
Fixed-station

The amateur service is a very small part of the spectrum below 30 Mhz. A lot of it is used for things like trans-oceanic flights, military and civilian mobile services, and the like.

I'm of two minds whether this will pass or not. Michael Powell, the FCC chair, hasn't made a good decision since he got into office, so I'm thinking this will go through because he's got the power companies all giving him blow jobs under the table. On the other hand, the FAA, NTIA, the military, and the shortwave broadcasters may get through to the FCC that they can't allow this, and maybe somebody will get that lamebrain Powell to do something right.

What is Section 301?

The US military spectrum regulator is the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), part of the Dept. of Commerce.

where exactly does ICANN derive its' authority from

The United States Department of Commerce

http://www.ntia.doc.gov/ntiahome/domainname/ican n- memorandum.htm

The open spectrum concept raises its ugly head again. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised; it combines the sexiest of terms (Moore's Law! Metcalfe's Law! SDR! UWB! Spread Spectrum! Mesh Networks! Open Source!) in one neat package, tied with a bow. If only they could work in the magnetic bracelet that cures arthritis, it would be a marketer's dream.

There are other reasons for spectrum allocation besides the "technology limitations" cited in the ACM article. Two of the most significant are:

1. The spectrum is used for many different services, with differing Quality of Service (QoS) requirements. Some of these, like the Instrument Landing Systems at airports, emergency services, GPS, etc. I'd like to have dedicated spectrum available solely to them 24x7; the idea that a trapped fireman's call on his handheld 2-way radio is not heard because of interference from a nearby mesh network providing video packets of a football game (or, if you like, the trapped fireman's call on his limited-range Open Spectrum radio is not heard because the burning building's network is already down) is not very appealing.

Other services, like industrial heating (and even microwave ovens) do not even use the RF spectrum for communication at all; if not limited in spectrum these large transmitted power services can render people incommunicado over large physical areas. Open Spectrum advocates will claim that this last problem will be overcome by the processing gain of the Open Spectrum radio itself; I merely note that increasing processing gain is increasingly expensive, and getting 60 dB of processing gain is a severe pain at wideband bit rates, while it is a trivial exercise for a tuned circuit if the spectrum is allocated properly.

2. The spectrum has different physical properties that make certain frequencies (and frequency bands) more suitable for certain services. Services that require ionospheric refraction need to operate below 30 MHz; systems using satellite-earth links must operate above 30 MHz. Systems requiring a lot of antenna gain, such as space probes and terrestrial point-to-point links, need to be a high frequency (multiple GHz), where high gain can be achieved in a small physical size by the use of parabolic antennas. Systems requiring worldwide underwater coverage must be below 100 Hz. There are atmospheric attenuation peaks at 24 and 60 GHz (and others higher) caused by oxygen absorption that make these frequencies useless for any trans-atmospheric links, but ideal for short-range unlicensed systems (that's why there are ISM unlicensed bands there). Rain (a.k.a. hydrometeors) becomes a significant attenuator above 5-20 GHz, depending on the rate at which it falls; this affects systems in tropical regions more than those in more temperate areas (see a graph of atmospheric attenuation). The hydrogen line (1420.40575 MHz), used by astronomers, is a fixed frequency. Etc.--this is just a partial list. All frequencies are not created equal.

However, if you'd like to stick to technical problems, consider the multiple access problem for these systems.

The success of 802.11b is often cited as an example for the Open Spectrum initiative--an unlicensed band being used productively. However, 11b has now become the 800-lb. gorilla in the 2.4 GHz ISM band; other services attempting to use that band must coexist with it, but it doesn't have to coexist with them. Any interference it causes to these new services must be borne by them; as a result, we have created a de facto allocated band.

I've heard that the US senate seat for NJ costs $65 million. It helps if it's mostly your own money though...

That may seem like a lot, but I think it's a great bargain.

You'd control 1/100th of 1/2 of 1/3 of the entire federal government: or 0.167%. (1 seat of 100 Senators; Legislative branch divided into two houses; FederalGov=Executive+Legislative+Judicial)

The GDP of the US is about $10 trillion, so 0.167% of that is: $16.7 billion. Almost 260 times the investment! The return is even greater considering that Senators don't have to worry about re-elections for six years.

They weren't kidding: Corzine really IS a successful businessman!

The US Commerce Department released an interesting report on private suborbital development. It's a little out of date now (doesn't mention Rutan's SS1, which is now an X-Prize front-runner), but is still an interesting read.

Jon Acheson

I don't know exactly what her involvement with DoubleClick was, but a quick search turns up some interesting information.

This site gives a little more information about her. ...and a picture too.

A quote from this page seems to indicate she may not be as evil as many assume:

O'Connor Kelly addressed consumer information security and the delicate balance between security and civil liberties.

In the search, I also saw an interview with some women's group. I didn't find much, but I didn't look for very long. Kind of eases my worries though--at least in terms of why they hired her. She doesn't seem to be a shill intented to fool the public, but it's hard to say from the information.

I do know I want to date her. She's really hot and seems to be a cool person. I wonder if she's a lesbian? ;-)

Here is a quick bio. She's 34, so she's a young woman in what is still seems very much an old white man's game. Given her acedemic credentials, and where she is today, she's an overachiever. This may be a very good thing if she is has enough moral backbone to stave off corrupting special interests.
Call me cynical and sterotyping, but I think this is better than having yet another old, corrupt white guy in someones pocket.

In the cutting and pasting, the submitter clipped an important word from the opening paragraph...

"The former privacy officer of Internet advertising giant DoubleClick will be the Department of Homeland Security's first privacy czar, Bush administration officials said. "

Yes, she once worked for DoubleClick, but she only started AFTER the FTC sited them for privacy abuses. So she went in, cleaned them up, settled their lawsuits, and moved on. She now works for the Department of Commerce.

So, she ran the privacy clean-up for DoubleClick, and now she's picked to do the same thing, monitoring privacy for the government's latest fad, Homeland Security. Is this a problem? Or is it only a problem because she was picked by a conservative?

Yes. Per quarter.

Totally wrong, it's annual, 10 trillion or so. See the government stats. The table clearly says "seasonally adjusted at annual rates." You should also realize this number makes sense because otherwise:
1) the national debt would be like 15% of GDP (I wish); and
2) US fixed asset values (the value of frickin everything everywhere - about 30 trillion) would be less than one year's GDP.

Very thoughtful, thank you. But I can't convince myself that everywhere free trade has gone it was ultimately good for democracy or quality of life. Has it even worked out that way a majority of the time, in our lifetimes? I think about Central and South America (heck, even Mexico), Malaysia, Indonesia... Even on the the deficit chart I see a bunch of countries that are still waiting to see South Korean style prosperity.

One reason I think it's slow is that free trade is not about reform. Businesses are in business to make a profit. If reform happens, what luck. I think it boils down to how much the population's wealth really increases from working in the foreigner's factory, and whether or not their governments can carve out enough to invest in new services, education, etc. Nation building (as opposed to Swiss bank account building).

What troubles me especially about it is that the the foreign investors (big businesses) then have an incentive to maintain the status quo, and they have even more pull with a 3rd world nation (government, media, etc) than they do with ours. In practice I think the sweatshop trickle down effect often leaves much to be desired. I wonder if we can find other, more effective methods than giving businesses carte blance to loot and plunder in exchange for economic (and hopefully social) development. It sounds like psychotherapy. Sometimes it might work, usually it doesn't, but it sure is profitable for the shrink.

That's the bad scenario I imagine, anyway.

I think of the backflips and cartwheels Eastern Europe (for instance Turkey) did to gain consideration for EU membership. The EU didn't say... we'll admit you, and when you're exposed to our wealth as a trading partner that will reform you. They said, "reform, or you can't get in." And with that incentive, they got real results. Those famous Turkish prisons have already started losing their old-world charm.

China is an especially interesting point. I'm not an expert on China and I'd love to learn more specifically about what is improving over there right now. But I gather from my reading that they're doing basically what Japan and South Korea did, which was highly protectionist. They kept their currency very cheap. They instituted lots of tarrifs and restrictive trade policies (and in the case of Japan the Kieretsu just didn't buy from Americans). Do I have this right?

Do you know that we would most likely already have a replacement heavy lifter rocket if NASA hadn't been in the way? Beal Aerospace was well along with their KISS-designed staged heavy lifter rocket when NASA announced SLI, killing them dead (you can't compete when your competitors are being funded by your intended buyer). The Beal rocket wasn't a done deal, but it had a strong chance of success.

There are a number of other companies out there that are capable of developing space launch systems at a fraction of the cost of a NASA "let's use 8 new technologies and spread jobs across 45 states" efforts.

Here's the US Dept. of Commerce's Technology Administration report on the suborbital market. It lists a number of companies developing suborbital craft, all at a fraction of the cost of NASA's efforts:

Suborbital Reusable Launch Vehicles and Applicable Markets, October 2002

There are clearly alternatives to doing it the NASA way, and we should pursue them. If we use NASA's methods, we will get NASA's results.

Jon Acheson

Oh yeah, and I think that simple life forms will be made with this technology and some idiot scientist will think he's all bad-ass, until the damn thing morphs into some wicked, evil thing right out of hell like something in Doom II and it will turn into a three-headed huge dinosaur-like creature, about the size of Godzilla or something, and it'll go stomping around and smashing up all of human civilization until there is literally nothing left in the world except for these things fighting amongst themselves. And that day will be called Armageddon, the end of all things. Oh well. For now, all I need is another Negra Modelo.

If you didn't get what the hell I was talking about in the first paragraph, please allow me to summarize it right here:

The processors in our computers will someday consist of the following technologies, combined as outlined in the aforementioned articles:

• Gate-based logic.
• Quantum computing.
• Biological computing.
• Nanotechnology.

Some interesting information, found at the National Nanotechnology Initiative's site, at http://www.nano.gov/nsetmem.htm, which lists the member participants:

PARTICIPANTS: NSET Members

Chair: M.C. Roco, NSF
Executive Secretary: J.S. Murday, NRL

Members: OSTP: S.N. Pace
OMB: D. Radzanowski
CIA: F.D. Gac
DOA: P. Schwab
DOC: C. Campbell, S. Yun,
DOD: W. Berry, J.S. Murday, G.S. Pomrenke
DOE: I.L. Thomas, R. Price, B.G. Volintine
DOJ: D. Boyd, T. DePersia
DOS: R. Braibanti, R. McCreight
DOT: R.R. John, A. Lacombe
DoTREAS: E. Murphy
EPA: L.A. Friedl, S. Lingle
NASA: S. Venneri, M. Hirschbein, M. Dastoor
NIH: J.A. Schloss, E. Kousvelari
NRC: U.S. Bhachu
NIST: P. Casassa, C.R. Snyder, P. Looney
NSF: M.C. Roco, T.A. Weber, M.P. Henkart.

According to the Nanoindustries site at http://www.nanoindustries.com/, Nanotechnology can provide vast benefits above and beyond what is being experimented with today. For example:

Nanotechnology could save the ozone layer. Whilst experimenting with nanospheres and perfluorodecalin, a liquid used in the production of synthetic blood, researchers at Germany's University of Ulm have stumbled across a phenomenon that could ultimately help remove ozone-harming chemicals from the atmosphere. The perfluorodecalin, against all expectations, was taken up by a water-based suspension of 60 nm diameter polystyrene articles. nanotechweb 1/30/03

For those of you interested in Quantum computing, there is an interesting book by Braunstein... you can find more information about it at http://www.informatics.bangor.ac.uk/~schmuel/book/ book1.html.

With the Bush Administration streamlining services to help U.S. businesses grow, I think I can go ahead and have my Negra Modelo now.

This post has been composed of serious material, funny material, crap, and useful information. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please call us toll free by paying us the sum of One Hundred Million Dollars ($100,000,000.00 USD) to receive our toll free voice telephone number, or simply email us by using the best email application on the market, Microsoft Outlook.

• Microsoft is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.
• "Isuzu" is a registered trademark of American Isuzu Motors Inc.
• "Chrysler" is a registered trademark of DaimlerChrysler.
• "Chevrolet" is a registered trademark of General Motors Corporation.
• "Volvo" is a registered trademark of Volvo Cars of North America, LLC.
• "Linux" is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
• "Lotus" is a registered trademark of Lotus Development Corporation in the United States and other countries.
• "Saturn" is a registered trademark of Saturn Corporation.
• "Nestea" is a registered trademark of Soci,t, des Produits Nestl, S.A., Switzerland. "Evian" is a registered trademark of Groupe Danone.
• "Mitsubishi" is a registered trademark of Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America, Inc.
• "Oldsmobile" is a registered trademark of General Motors Corporation.
• "Nissan" is a registered trademark of Nissan North America, Inc.
• "Acura" is a registered trademark of American Honda Motor Company, Inc.
• "Jeep" is a registered trademark of DaimlerChrysler.
• "Toyota" is a registered trademark of Toyota Motor Corporation.
• "Hyundai" is a registered trademark of Hyundai Motor America.
• "Plymouth" is a registered trademark of DaimlerChrysler.
• "Mickey's Avonturen" is a trademark of Disney Enterprises, Inc.
• "Cadillac" is a registered trademark of General Motors Corporation.
• "Dodge" is a registered trademark of DaimlerChrysler.
• "Mazda" is a registered trademark of Mazda Motor Corporation.
• "Honda" is a registered trademark of American Honda Motor Company, Inc.
• "Ford" is a registered trademark of Ford Motor Company.
• "Mercury" is a registered trademark of Ford Motor Company.
• "Lincoln" is a registered trademark of Ford Motor Company.
• "Coca- Cola", "Coca-Cola light", "Cherry Coke", "Sprite", "Fanta", "Aquarius", "Bonaqua", "Kinley", "Minute Maid", "Splash", "Aquana"the design of the "Coca-Cola Contour" Bottle and the "Coca-Cola Red Disc" icon are registered trademarks of The Coca-Cola Company.
• "Subaru" is a registered trademark of Subaru of America, Inc.
• "Kia" is a registered trademark of Kia Motors America, Inc.
• "GMC" is a registered trademark of General Motors Corporation.
• "IBM," the e-business logo, eServer, iSeries, pSeries, xSeries, zSeries, Websphere, DB2, and Tivoli are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States and other countries.
• "Red Hat" is a registered trademark of Red Hat, Inc.
• "Red Devil Energy Drink" is a registered trademark of Futuristic Brands S.A., Luxemburg.
• All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

It's time for another beer. It's time for another beer. It's time for another beer. It's time for another beer. It's time for another beer. And I'm going to have a Negra Modelo. Or two. Or three. Or four. Or five..... I have too much time on my hands.

NPR gets about 2% of it's funding from tax payers. It's nearly completely listener funded.

The 2% number is definately "fishy." NPR, a distributor of public radio content, receives only 2% of its funding directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which gets money from the Federal Government.

But NPR is but a small part of public radio, and even it gets plenty of taxpayers funds indirectly that are "laundered" through other entities.

For example, NPR gets 30% of its revenue from programming fees from public radio stations. Those stations often receive Federal funding from the CPB (community service grants, for example) and also can receive funds from state governments directly, through educational institutions, from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) through the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), and often from local governments as well. NPR's satellite distribution service, the PRSS, also receives Federal funding.

So if you "follow the money," you will see that far more than 2% of taxpayer funding ends up going to public radio.

The CPB says that membership accounts for only 25% of public broadcasting revenues. Businesses and foundations contribute 22.6%. Public and private educaitonal sources contribute 10.4%.

So at the end of the day, it is reasonable to say that around 50% of public broadcasting revenues come from taxpayer dollars. Due to the larger number of state supported public television networks, I suspect the number is slightly less for public radio (~40%).

But it isn't 2%...

But, if the US military is sending public key encryption to Iraqis, doesn't that violate the US Dept of Commerce's commercial encryption export laws?

Not a joke this time around.

In Post-Soviet Russia law mandates ISPs securing a pipe of 10% of all their other bandwith straight to FAPSI (read - KGB). This is not impossible, they atcually do it. Watch this. 10 % is not here, but it was hotly debgated in russian press back then in 90-s.

And to answer "Internet is not US property" - they don't care. They only need to control every single ISP in US (which is feasible), to control every single Net user in US plus a great deal of transit traffic.

The information retention is not The Bad Thing in itself, it's how its used what matters. Everybody would be happy if information was retained, but only court order would allow anyone to get specific pieces of it. Cops would get all their bad guys (as defined by judge, not cops) while privacy would be preserved.