Slashdot Mirror

The big vile ISPs are notorious for not listening. Rules will exist meant to ensure that everyone has a fair business model for ISPs and then the big guys will keep looking at the model to squeeze more and more money out of it because fair business isn't enough for those guys... they have to squeeze every last nickel out.

What we need is a global competitor to big ISPs that can deploy anywhere. Google could be that new hope, but so could a DIY off-grid group. Google's baloon experiment could be what we need but it doesn't have to stop there and also it is important to note that Google's closeness to NSA is problematic.

There are other better answers to big ISP. Teleporation could destroy the ISP business model and place the power directly in the hands of each individual. No more government spying. No more ISP bullshit.

pfft, you bunch of technophiles.
5 years ago a guy who wanted his story published contacted an editor, got an appointment and showed them the manuscript:

100 handwritten pages.

The editor said SRSLY? GO LEARN COMPUTING. The guy did it, but of course chose the wrong platform, word on windows. He pulled it off after the expected pain, and he got published.

I have put in driveway snowmelt systems and a typically driveway needs at a minimum ~100 kbtu/hr boiler to keep the driveway clear. Scaling that up to a road way and it would be astronomical.

That was my thought as well. Phase change is a bitch, so I anticipated this was a marketing gimmick. I decided to run some quick calculations to determine how much snow could be melted by a 1 m^2 solar heating roadway plate thing.

Solar Roadways is in Idaho, so I decided to use their location for stats. I decided to use an average insolation value of 2 kWh/day in December in Idaho. I disregarded the fact that these plates won't be tilted to compensate for latitude, which will give the roadway an artificially improved performance stat. I used an enthalpy of fusion for water as 334 kJ/kg. I used a 50 kg/m^3 value for the density of freshly-fallen snow. Finally, I decided to let the road panel have a 15% PV efficiency as well as a 100% solar panel coverage (neither of which is likely to be realistic for a road tile thing, but again this is in favor of the roadway panel).

So, how much snow can this melt per day? Call it 6.5 cm. In practice, I'm guessing the answer is closer to "0", because the instant the panel is covered by snow it will cease generating energy. Also, snowstorms are not known to occur during bright, bright, sunshiny days. It seems Solar Roadways expects their panels to be hooked to the grid and pull power to melt snow.

Therefore, this exercise devolves to "why haven't we installed electric radiant heat in our existing roadways to melt snow?"

Well, if we have a four lane standard US highway (12 ft lanes) and we need to melt that same 6.5 cm of freshly fallen snow, it would require 4.4 MWh (yes, megawatt-hours). In Idaho, it looks like an average wholesale rate for 1 MWh of electricity is approximately $150. So... call it $600 per km to melt a few cm of snow... once? And this is for light, fluffy, happy snow, not the slushy sleety shit that has the density of neutronium and gives grandpa a heart attack when he tries to shovel it.

Unless I dropped a few orders of magnitude here (please let me know if I did), it seems the answer to this is "just use the fucking salt instead, like we have been doing." In conclusion, perhaps the LED roadway is useful, but the snow melting bit really seems to be a gimmick.

I have put in driveway snowmelt systems and a typically driveway needs at a minimum ~100 kbtu/hr boiler to keep the driveway clear. Scaling that up to a road way and it would be astronomical.

That was my thought as well. Phase change is a bitch, so I anticipated this was a marketing gimmick. I decided to run some quick calculations to determine how much snow could be melted by a 1 m^2 solar heating roadway plate thing.

Solar Roadways is in Idaho, so I decided to use their location for stats. I decided to use an average insolation value of 2 kWh/day in December in Idaho. I disregarded the fact that these plates won't be tilted to compensate for latitude, which will give the roadway an artificially improved performance stat. I used an enthalpy of fusion for water as 334 kJ/kg. I used a 50 kg/m^3 value for the density of freshly-fallen snow. Finally, I decided to let the road panel have a 15% PV efficiency as well as a 100% solar panel coverage (neither of which is likely to be realistic for a road tile thing, but again this is in favor of the roadway panel).

So, how much snow can this melt per day? Call it 6.5 cm. In practice, I'm guessing the answer is closer to "0", because the instant the panel is covered by snow it will cease generating energy. Also, snowstorms are not known to occur during bright, bright, sunshiny days. It seems Solar Roadways expects their panels to be hooked to the grid and pull power to melt snow.

Therefore, this exercise devolves to "why haven't we installed electric radiant heat in our existing roadways to melt snow?"

Well, if we have a four lane standard US highway (12 ft lanes) and we need to melt that same 6.5 cm of freshly fallen snow, it would require 4.4 MWh (yes, megawatt-hours). In Idaho, it looks like an average wholesale rate for 1 MWh of electricity is approximately $150. So... call it $600 per km to melt a few cm of snow... once? And this is for light, fluffy, happy snow, not the slushy sleety shit that has the density of neutronium and gives grandpa a heart attack when he tries to shovel it.

Unless I dropped a few orders of magnitude here (please let me know if I did), it seems the answer to this is "just use the fucking salt instead, like we have been doing." In conclusion, perhaps the LED roadway is useful, but the snow melting bit really seems to be a gimmick.

This seems interesting. Well, the whole book probably is!

It wont work.

I use textsecure: https://play.google.com/store/...
and redphone: https://play.google.com/store/...

which encrypt text and calls to other people who use it. Which includes my wife... because I installed it for her... and that's about it. My paranoid friends that might use such things wont even get a smartphone so... yea...

anyways, both applications are pretty good. I'm with Verizon and they have a TERRIBLE messaging app that they replaced the standard android app with. It literally crashes my phone it's so bad. So I replaced it with this. The only annoying bit is having to enter your password if you reboot the phone. Textsecure even sends the texts via the internet rather than using the cellular network to save you messages if the other users got it as well.

It wont work.

I use textsecure: https://play.google.com/store/...
and redphone: https://play.google.com/store/...

which encrypt text and calls to other people who use it. Which includes my wife... because I installed it for her... and that's about it. My paranoid friends that might use such things wont even get a smartphone so... yea...

anyways, both applications are pretty good. I'm with Verizon and they have a TERRIBLE messaging app that they replaced the standard android app with. It literally crashes my phone it's so bad. So I replaced it with this. The only annoying bit is having to enter your password if you reboot the phone. Textsecure even sends the texts via the internet rather than using the cellular network to save you messages if the other users got it as well.

Which is funny -- She wrote a lot of pages -- more than I care to read in one sitting. In all that, somewhere, you'd think there's be fertile soil for a response more intellectually stimulating than, "she's a crank".

You might have a look at Atlas Sucked, which has become my go-to rebuttal for at least that particular novel. It is such an in-depth critique of Rand's odd ideas about running a business that I just ask people to read that instead of posting e.g. the old joke about Tolkien and Rand.

The U.S. spends just shy of $15k/yr on education per student, which is more than any other developed nation on earth. A quick google search shows that your $4221 figure is already in 2010 dollars. So spending per student has actually almost quadrupled since 1969.

Don't get him started, please!!!

Just type narcc jquery site:slashdot.org into Google if you really must know his thoughts on the subject.

Proof? Go to http://news.google.com/ and observe how each story has numerous different versions of it linked.

On top of that, I'm certain other directors, musicians, or actors have had regret or embarrassment about previous works, and would like to change the past. But they don't, and know why they shouldn't. Filmmaking contains a certain element of preservation. To capture the time and era the film came out in, and leave all nuances intact. Yet another reason why film colorization for classic films is more often rejected than not.

Honestly, Lucas disrespected his own work as an artist and a director by changing it. It would be akin to Paul McCartney wanting to change the lyrics on the White Album decades later because he's had a political change of heart (ironically I'm talking about the man who wrote "Let it Be"). Any backlash Lucas gets is deserved.

The most crazy thing about Lucas making such drastic changes to his movies is that he agrees with you that it shouldn't be done. He has been a big proponent of keeping black and white films in their original. george lucas on colorization He argues that everybody else should keep the movies as they were originally made, but when it comes to his own movies that does not apply.

Imagine if google and bing decided that a certain candidate didn't exist and the name only returned some unrelated items. No news article links, no info sites, nothing.

For example: https://www.google.com/search?q=santorum

Although that was an independent campaign to influence Google results rather than an action internal to Google.

Counterpoint, I had one of these, and the down tube / head tube joint did crack, in fact it only lasted 3 or 4 years. I would imagine a lot has changed since then though. (Also, Canondale did replace it with a newer model, on warranty).

"It seems to me the only rational approach is to assume that nothing can be trusted and and act accordingly. Assume that whatever you are doing online is being observed by someone or anyone ..."

I've been saying to make the best of this since at least 2008 (chain of citations):
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-d...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
"Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously. :-)
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends. :-)
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves. :-)"

Or more recently:
"A way forward through openness? (Score:5, Informative)"
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Of course, growing up in a Christian ideological environment, the idea is nothing new that all my actions are under constant surveillance 100% 24X7 by an omniscient entity who can even read my thoughts and decides my ultimate fate day by day... Just got to make the best of it... :-)

Not saying that means it will end well if humans are entrusted with that kind of surveillance power... Although "The Light of Other Days" and "The Transparent Society" are both books to think about...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

It's probably only a matter of time anyway until the halls of all governments are saturated with nanotech "smart dust" by all sorts of actors (see Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" or some other stories for examples). Governments might want to get their houses in order before then... In that sense, Manning and Snowden might both just be the tip of the iceberg -- even if smart dust like that is still probably ten or twenty years off...

Or also from me in 2008:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post...
"Wikipedia. GNU/Linux. WordNet. Google. These things were not on the visible horizon to most of us even as little as twenty years ago. Now they have remade huge aspects of how we live. Are these free-to-the-user informational products and services all there is to be on the internet or are they the tip of a metaphorical iceberg of free stuff and free services that is heading our way? Or even, via projects like the RepRap 3D printer under development, are free physical objects someday heading into our homes? If a "post-scarcity" iceberg is coming, are our older scarcity-oriented social institutions prepared to survive it? Or like the Titanic, will these social institutions sink once the full force of the iceberg contacts them? And will they start taking on water even if just dinged by little chunks of sea ice like the cheap $100 laptops that are ahead of the main iceberg?"

Or in this case, will 20th-century-mindset security institutions start sinking when their procedures are dinged by revelations moved via small cheap USB sticks apparently carried around by Manning and Snowden? Really, how "secure" or wise is a plan in the 21st century when it depends on 100% secrecy forever? Shouldn't so-called security experts employed at great expense by governments know better by now? Security by obscurity is problematical, especially over the

"It seems to me the only rational approach is to assume that nothing can be trusted and and act accordingly. Assume that whatever you are doing online is being observed by someone or anyone ..."

I've been saying to make the best of this since at least 2008 (chain of citations):
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-d...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
"Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously. :-)
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends. :-)
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves. :-)"

Or more recently:
"A way forward through openness? (Score:5, Informative)"
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Of course, growing up in a Christian ideological environment, the idea is nothing new that all my actions are under constant surveillance 100% 24X7 by an omniscient entity who can even read my thoughts and decides my ultimate fate day by day... Just got to make the best of it... :-)

Not saying that means it will end well if humans are entrusted with that kind of surveillance power... Although "The Light of Other Days" and "The Transparent Society" are both books to think about...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

It's probably only a matter of time anyway until the halls of all governments are saturated with nanotech "smart dust" by all sorts of actors (see Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" or some other stories for examples). Governments might want to get their houses in order before then... In that sense, Manning and Snowden might both just be the tip of the iceberg -- even if smart dust like that is still probably ten or twenty years off...

Or also from me in 2008:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post...
"Wikipedia. GNU/Linux. WordNet. Google. These things were not on the visible horizon to most of us even as little as twenty years ago. Now they have remade huge aspects of how we live. Are these free-to-the-user informational products and services all there is to be on the internet or are they the tip of a metaphorical iceberg of free stuff and free services that is heading our way? Or even, via projects like the RepRap 3D printer under development, are free physical objects someday heading into our homes? If a "post-scarcity" iceberg is coming, are our older scarcity-oriented social institutions prepared to survive it? Or like the Titanic, will these social institutions sink once the full force of the iceberg contacts them? And will they start taking on water even if just dinged by little chunks of sea ice like the cheap $100 laptops that are ahead of the main iceberg?"

Or in this case, will 20th-century-mindset security institutions start sinking when their procedures are dinged by revelations moved via small cheap USB sticks apparently carried around by Manning and Snowden? Really, how "secure" or wise is a plan in the 21st century when it depends on 100% secrecy forever? Shouldn't so-called security experts employed at great expense by governments know better by now? Security by obscurity is problematical, especially over the

"It seems to me the only rational approach is to assume that nothing can be trusted and and act accordingly. Assume that whatever you are doing online is being observed by someone or anyone ..."

I've been saying to make the best of this since at least 2008 (chain of citations):
http://www.pdfernhout.net/on-d...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
https://groups.google.com/foru...
"Our biggest advantage is that no one takes us seriously. :-)
And our second biggest advantage is that our communications are monitored, which provides a channel by which we can turn enemies into friends. :-)
And our third biggest advantage is we have no assets, and so are not a profitable target and have nothing serious to fight over amongst ourselves. :-)"

Or more recently:
"A way forward through openness? (Score:5, Informative)"
http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Of course, growing up in a Christian ideological environment, the idea is nothing new that all my actions are under constant surveillance 100% 24X7 by an omniscient entity who can even read my thoughts and decides my ultimate fate day by day... Just got to make the best of it... :-)

Not saying that means it will end well if humans are entrusted with that kind of surveillance power... Although "The Light of Other Days" and "The Transparent Society" are both books to think about...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T...

It's probably only a matter of time anyway until the halls of all governments are saturated with nanotech "smart dust" by all sorts of actors (see Vinge's "A Deepness in the Sky" or some other stories for examples). Governments might want to get their houses in order before then... In that sense, Manning and Snowden might both just be the tip of the iceberg -- even if smart dust like that is still probably ten or twenty years off...

Or also from me in 2008:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/post...
"Wikipedia. GNU/Linux. WordNet. Google. These things were not on the visible horizon to most of us even as little as twenty years ago. Now they have remade huge aspects of how we live. Are these free-to-the-user informational products and services all there is to be on the internet or are they the tip of a metaphorical iceberg of free stuff and free services that is heading our way? Or even, via projects like the RepRap 3D printer under development, are free physical objects someday heading into our homes? If a "post-scarcity" iceberg is coming, are our older scarcity-oriented social institutions prepared to survive it? Or like the Titanic, will these social institutions sink once the full force of the iceberg contacts them? And will they start taking on water even if just dinged by little chunks of sea ice like the cheap $100 laptops that are ahead of the main iceberg?"

Or in this case, will 20th-century-mindset security institutions start sinking when their procedures are dinged by revelations moved via small cheap USB sticks apparently carried around by Manning and Snowden? Really, how "secure" or wise is a plan in the 21st century when it depends on 100% secrecy forever? Shouldn't so-called security experts employed at great expense by governments know better by now? Security by obscurity is problematical, especially over the

What, specifically, are these "large scale changes" you claim we're already seeing?

um, the arctic ice cap is almost gone. that's one pretty fucking obvious thing with huge global albedo budget implications.

https://sites.google.com/site/...

*cough* *cough*

The Virgin Galactic pilots did. Actually, I just noticed that Virgin Galactic's own site claims that you will get them! lol! whoooops!

"Later that evening, sitting with your astronaut wings, you know that life will never quite be the same again."

http://www.virgingalactic.com/...

"On return to Earth these pioneering individuals will receive their Virgin Galactic astronaut wings and plenty of images and videos of their experience."

http://www.ulixtravel.com/virg...

Although, according to Space Law: A Treatise it says:

In the US, any person going higher than 50 miles is awarded 'astronaut wings'

So maybe there is still a chance?

everyday?? no, but it happens - https://www.google.com/search?...

New Jersey since 2002 has been waiting for smart guns to be available so their law can kick in and make them mandatory for all guns sold there. Police, of course, will be exempt from this law. Imagine that.

Have you tried him on K-9 mail for Android?

While K-9 is a very nice client on a phone, it's awful on a larger tablet.
The builtin one sucks too.

It took me about a dozen tries to find the only Android mail client
with a sensible tablet interface that lets you properly quote inline:
The barely googleable K-@ Mail. I happily paid for the pro version.

50 miles is 80.4672km so even higher than you thought. https://www.google.com/search?...

Source or your're a shill.

I'll take you up on that. How's a simple Google search as a citation? The ads are all for "organic pesticides". Followed by several articles & websites either offering advice in what can be used(one of which is to use tobacco water, which generally has the same effect as how this pesticide is used) or explaining how these methods are just as bad or worse than regular pesticides.

The thing I learned by going over several of the articles turned up by this search is that the difference between an "organic" farm & a non-organic one isn't that there are no pesticides or that they aren't a factory farm, but that they only use naturally occurring and often unregulated pesticides, frequently at much higher application levels. Even worse, is that some of the pesticides & pesticide methods have much the same effect as synthetic ones, mainly because the base compounds are related(like using tobacco water versus neonicotinoids, as both are based on nicotine-like chemicals). What I see is no different than homeopathic remedies vs traditional medicine.

What about when Franken was preaching in full support of Protect IP?

Google traditionally copies all user feeback to the round file. They go through the motions getting user feedback to satisfy some well meaning internal guidelines, but in the end Google decides all questions by the colors on the powerpoint slides. Redesign of the news site is a classic example, tens of thousands of negative comments in multiple forums and nearly nothing good to say about it, in the end a few cosmetic tweaks were made but user feedback was overwhelmingly ignored. It still sucks. I expect pretty much the same with gmail. How about fixing things that actually matter, like not being able to right click and open a mail in a new browser tab?

This is the URL I have bookmarked https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html
https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=html.

It is the only way to have Gmail usable on a slower netbook. The totally arrogant new Google designers don't understand what made Google great. It was uncluttered and faster than AltaVista search, Yahoo and Hotmail.

They messed up image search (unlimited scroll), does my old smartphone have unlimited memory???
They messed up Google maps, all the lab features are gone like measuring the direct distance.

Please Google, do no evil, leave the old interface available, preferably configurable. We don't need more eye-candy, we need functionality.

Try Gmail "Basic HTML" interface. Missing things are: the chat history (can still be accessed via "in:chats" search) and easy selection of multiple items.

Google has removed the link to activate it, so here it is.

From the basic, if you do not like it, you can always switch back to the "normal" interface. Only switch to the basic is via this special link.

Overall, works well for me. Definitely better than the mess they have made out of the GMail interface 2+ years ago.

Use this link to access your account:

https://mail.google.com/mail/?...

The UI will launch in HTML mode. It is usually triggered for old browsers or slow internet connections.

[Ctrl]+[V]

https://www.google.com/search?q=guy+fawkes+mask&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ei=XOtvU9zaBqHjsATXhoDoAw&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ&biw=1621&bih=850

Glen Beck didn't invent the term 'useful idiot', it dates back to the Soviet era and was used to describe communist sympathisers who did the work of the KGB without directly interacting with them.

It's a term used by American anti-Communists to describe everyone they disagreed with including Ronald Reagan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... as you can see from the standard reference They Never Said It http://books.google.com/books?... or from a Google search.

You fucking idiot. You 'useful idiot', more like.

This particular troll listens to Glenn Beck, who invented the meaningless phrase "useful idiot". This is a particularly vile kind of troll.

As much as I hate Glenn Beck (and Fox News in general), this is not true. The phrase is a reference to Stalin, who referred to communist sympathizers in the USA as "useful idiots," recognizing both that they served a purpose for him and that they were morons for wanting wealth redistribution while members of the wealthiest nation in the world. So essentially, every time Beck used that phrase, he was associating the people he was insulting with communism, but in a way that wasn't easily called out and discredited based on, well...facts.

You're getting your misattributions wrong. The phrase "useful idiots" wasn't misattributed to Stalin, it was misattributed to Lenin. That is easily verified now that the reference book, They Never Said It, is on Google books. http://books.google.com/books?... Of course there's always Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

what is an electron, what really is it ? and anyway... There are no electrons!.

No palemoon for android devices I see. I'll stick with naked browser for now. https://play.google.com/store/...

The link to the actual patent -> http://www.google.com/patents/US6438180

It is very hard to tell what is going on in the patent. Seems like it is an method inside an error correcting algorithm for hard drives. Error correcting is statistical in hard disks and it seems like they found a new method for some error correlation for turbo codes. I'm not an expert in this field so I don't know how much of an impact this had on error coding.

The present invention is directed to a method of determining branch metric values in a detector. The method includes receiving a plurality of time variant signal samples, the signal samples having one of signal-dependent noise, correlated noise, and both signal dependent and correlated noise associated therewith. The method also includes selecting a branch metric function at a certain time index and applying the selected function to the signal samples to determine the metric values. The present invention represents a substantial advance over prior sequence detectors. Because the present invention takes into account the correlation between noise samples in the readback signal, the detected data sequence is detected with a higher degree of accuracy. Those advantages and benefits of the present invention, and others, will become apparent from the Detailed Description of the Invention hereinbelow.

It was called DNSSEC Stapled Certificates. Was -- Chrome removed it.

See also RFC 6698.

Note you can already do this with SSH keys, where's the implementation for TLS for HTTP?

"After my election I have more flexibility." -- Obama to Medvedev

If you want affordable, good sounding speakers, you have to build them yourself. Get one of versions of these: https://sites.google.com/site/...

I'm going to look really funny wearing those on the bus though.

Right. I continue to be baffled by people that will buy crappy headphones with some random musicians name on them and think they'll in any way sound good.

In speakers, size matters. Yes, you can get big crappy sounding speakers. But the one thing you'll never get small good sounding speakers. Laws of physics and all. This is also why Bose sucks and have been conning guys that watch infomercials for decades.

If you want affordable, good sounding speakers, you have to build them yourself. Get one of versions of these: https://sites.google.com/site/...

They don't have a huge amount of bass, but I'm betting they will be the best speaker most slashdotters have ever heard. And you can put them together with wood glue, scotch tape and a soldering iron.

There is a lot of variation within this rule of size that often invalidates it. These babies for instance, will play better than much bigger speakers from well known and respected brands.

Right. I continue to be baffled by people that will buy crappy headphones with some random musicians name on them and think they'll in any way sound good.

Agreed.

In speakers, size matters. Yes, you can get big crappy sounding speakers. But the one thing you'll never get small good sounding speakers. Laws of physics and all. This is also why Bose sucks and have been conning guys that watch infomercials for decades.

Again, I agree. Bose takes it to a whole new level of suck though. They never post specs, and have sued enough reviewers over the years that most won't even mention them. There have been people who posted specs on their systems from time to time and they are astonishingly bad. I read somewhere that a replacement paper cone "woofer" in their satellite systems will set you back $12. Quality stuff that is.

If you want affordable, good sounding speakers, you have to build them yourself. Get one of versions of these: https://sites.google.com/site/...

I suppose it depends on your definition of affordable. But building the cabinets yourself is by no means a guarantee that they will sound good, or even better than commercially available loudspeakers. It doesn't take master carpenter skills, but you certainly need a decent tool set and be at least somewhat competent. I've built some pretty nice cabinets in the past. But they can take a lot of time to do correctly and I value my time a bit more than when I was younger. I've also heard some pretty awful sounding home built cabinets too.

They don't have a huge amount of bass, but I'm betting they will be the best speaker most slashdotters have ever heard. And you can put them together with wood glue, scotch tape and a soldering iron.

I needed a small 5.1 system for our living-room that needed to pass the wife approval factor. It's made by Martin Logan and I'd guess it would give your speakers run for their money. It wouldn't have been my first choice, but I needed a small foot print. and since I needed 5 speakers plus a sub,I was able to pick it up on clearance for $300. No assembly required.

I don't consider myself an audiophile, but I do have good ears for my age. Probably (in part) from playing various instruments starting with the violin when I was five years old. Fortunately my wife had no say in what I put in my media room. Between the sub (HSU VTF3) and Infinity beta floor standers (50), center (360)and surrounds (ES250)I have in there my system goes from 16 Hz to 20Khz (+/-3) and 12Hz to 40Khz (-6). The upper limit of what I can hear at the high end has fallen off, but I can still clearly hear a little past 22KHz. My setup works very well for both 7.1 channel video and 2 channel music listening. I'd guess it would be considered a high end consumer grade system. Most audiophiles would probably not care for it as they are not boutique speakers. But it's also by no means the best sounding system I've ever heard. So no, I doubt those "overnight sensations" are anywhere near the best sounding speaker I've heard.

Thanks! I see there's also one for Chrome:

https://chrome.google.com/webs...

I just hope these plugins are trustworthy.

ISP's have been hounding Google to pay for bandwidth at least as far back as when they bought YouTube, and even some countries (e.g. France) are trying to put pressure on them. Their policy has always been to fight difficult and expensive battles to set a favorable precedent. So far, only one company (Orange) has been successful at making Google pay for peering. In 2010 there was a study showing Google's network was the 2nd largest, only out sized by Level 3, and I think I read in a financial report that Google's network is now larger than Level 3's (article here). Google's private network to connect all their data centers operates at near 100% capacity all of the time (via OpenFlow), which was upgraded when it was considered really good to only waste 60-70% of the bandwidth. Google even builds their own network equipment because no one makes anything that will meet their needs. People were acting like Google was new to this networking game when they started to roll out Google Fiber. In reality, Google has a huge network that they manage and on the order of $10 billion in profit every year that will just rot (thanks to the Federal Reserve's inflation policies), unless Google finds ways to reinvest it. It's 3x the profit (and growing) of AT&T and Time Warner Cable combined, which are the two ISP's in my part of Kansas City.

I would guess it costs Google $300 per customer to run fiber, since that's what they charge for installation (waived with 1/yr Gigabit service), but that may not include everything Google pays for. I know they're paying $5 each for utility pole access and charge customers $100 for a replacement fiber jack and $200 for a replacement network box, which I assume includes some overhead in the price. They also do bulk installs by neighborhood instead of going all over to individual houses.

I expect they will roll out service to all 34 of the new cities in 9 metro areas ASAP, as long as the cities cooperative enough. Overland Park, a suburb of KC, had their offer revoked for asking questions. Their council was supposed to be approving the offer at a meeting, but instead decided to wait for clarification of one of the terms of the contract. I guess Google is too busy with people that are begging for service and offering their first born child for them to deal with questions at this point. They have a backlog through 2015 in the Kansas City area (city limits should be complete this year), and they still haven't announced anything for where I live, which is a painful 1/4 mile outside of a service area and less than 4 miles in any direction from Google Fiber. I'm stuck working from home with Time Warner, who also runs the connection at my data center 3 miles away, and requires me to tunnel my ssh session inside another TCP stream to avoid massive packet loss thanks to "upgrades". I never expected to lament losing the speed and reliability of dial up.

Right. I continue to be baffled by people that will buy crappy headphones with some random musicians name on them and think they'll in any way sound good.

In speakers, size matters. Yes, you can get big crappy sounding speakers. But the one thing you'll never get small good sounding speakers. Laws of physics and all. This is also why Bose sucks and have been conning guys that watch infomercials for decades.

If you want affordable, good sounding speakers, you have to build them yourself. Get one of versions of these:
https://sites.google.com/site/...

They don't have a huge amount of bass, but I'm betting they will be the best speaker most slashdotters have ever heard. And you can put them together with wood glue, scotch tape and a soldering iron.

I think its fun to watch a company that built its fortune on tiny margins move into a industry that has enormous customer hostile margins.

You have that backwards. Google's net margins are 50% higher than AT&Ts and double Comcast's.

Google has a net profit margin of 21.5%. AT&T has a net profit margin of 14.1%. Comcast has net profit margins around 10.5%.

Google is going to fucking destroy the big ISPs everywhere they go.

And your evidence for this is what exactly? While it would make me very happy to see more competition, I seriously doubt Google is going to push AT&T, Verizon and Comcast out of their current monopolies on any sort of widespread basis.

I think its fun to watch a company that built its fortune on tiny margins move into a industry that has enormous customer hostile margins.

You have that backwards. Google's net margins are 50% higher than AT&Ts and double Comcast's.

Google has a net profit margin of 21.5%. AT&T has a net profit margin of 14.1%. Comcast has net profit margins around 10.5%.

Google is going to fucking destroy the big ISPs everywhere they go.

And your evidence for this is what exactly? While it would make me very happy to see more competition, I seriously doubt Google is going to push AT&T, Verizon and Comcast out of their current monopolies on any sort of widespread basis.

I think its fun to watch a company that built its fortune on tiny margins move into a industry that has enormous customer hostile margins.

You have that backwards. Google's net margins are 50% higher than AT&Ts and double Comcast's.

Google has a net profit margin of 21.5%. AT&T has a net profit margin of 14.1%. Comcast has net profit margins around 10.5%.

Google is going to fucking destroy the big ISPs everywhere they go.

And your evidence for this is what exactly? While it would make me very happy to see more competition, I seriously doubt Google is going to push AT&T, Verizon and Comcast out of their current monopolies on any sort of widespread basis.

tl;dr
Higher demand services can end up costing less than low demand services for high fixed cost, low marginal cost services with competition. You see dynamic is what you see in the airlines all the time. It's why popular trips (e.g. NYC to florida) are much cheaper than less popular trips (e.g. Cincinnati to Houston)

The production costs of the station are not related to what consumers will pay for the station

Correct, there is no person saying "we need to reduce are revenue because we are making too much profit", but in the long run they *do* converge. Other companies will move in to undercut the incumbents if there is too much of a difference between revenue and costs (high profit), thus driving costs up and revenues down for both; hence the production costs and what consumers pay will have a relationship (namely they will get closer and reduce profit). I alluded to why in my earlier post but maybe I did not explain myself enough.

Making up numbers, if ESPN costs $5 billion per year to produce, and revenue maximizing pricing occurs at 50 million households at $200/year. So ESPN makes $10bn in revenue, for $5bn profit.

Big Media Company (BMC) looks at this and wants to make that kind of profit. So they build a studio, hire some people who know how to produce news, sports, and look good in front of a camera, and for $5bn, creates a network that looks a lot like ESPN. They charge, say, $175/month, and can attract maybe 40 million households, for $7bn in earnings and 2bn profits. ESPN maybe has 15 million subscribers (some people are big enough fans and will subscribe to both) still at $200/yr, and makes $3bn revenue and therefore has a loss of $2bn.

ESPN has to make a decision of whether they want to undercut this new rival. Let's say they do, and price at $150 next year. Maybe they get 45 million households, for earnings of $6.75bn and $1.75 profits. This price war goes back and forth until one of these companies drops out, probably at a cost of something like $80/month, with 60mm subscribers. Basically, the price war ends when even if one of them got all of the subscribers, it would leave a modest profit. If costs were only $3bn, the price war could continue until they were charging even less, say $50/month, with 65 million subscribers.

tl;dr
Higher demand services can end up costing less than low demand services for high fixed cost, low marginal cost services with competition. You see dynamic is what you see in the airlines all the time. It's why popular trips (e.g. NYC to florida) are much cheaper than less popular trips (e.g. Cincinnati to Houston)

The production costs of the station are not related to what consumers will pay for the station

Correct, there is no person saying "we need to reduce are revenue because we are making too much profit", but in the long run they *do* converge. Other companies will move in to undercut the incumbents if there is too much of a difference between revenue and costs (high profit), thus driving costs up and revenues down for both; hence the production costs and what consumers pay will have a relationship (namely they will get closer and reduce profit). I alluded to why in my earlier post but maybe I did not explain myself enough.

Making up numbers, if ESPN costs $5 billion per year to produce, and revenue maximizing pricing occurs at 50 million households at $200/year. So ESPN makes $10bn in revenue, for $5bn profit.

Big Media Company (BMC) looks at this and wants to make that kind of profit. So they build a studio, hire some people who know how to produce news, sports, and look good in front of a camera, and for $5bn, creates a network that looks a lot like ESPN. They charge, say, $175/month, and can attract maybe 40 million households, for $7bn in earnings and 2bn profits. ESPN maybe has 15 million subscribers (some people are big enough fans and will subscribe to both) still at $200/yr, and makes $3bn revenue and therefore has a loss of $2bn.

ESPN has to make a decision of whether they want to undercut this new rival. Let's say they do, and price at $150 next year. Maybe they get 45 million households, for earnings of $6.75bn and $1.75 profits. This price war goes back and forth until one of these companies drops out, probably at a cost of something like $80/month, with 60mm subscribers. Basically, the price war ends when even if one of them got all of the subscribers, it would leave a modest profit. If costs were only $3bn, the price war could continue until they were charging even less, say $50/month, with 65 million subscribers.

Google doesn't throttle or have bandwidth caps on their fiber.

From their network management page:

In times of acute congestion, Google Fiber Internet service bandwidth will be fairly allocated among subscribers without regard to the subscribersâ(TM) online activities or the protocols or applications that the subscribers are using.

Google Fiberâ(TM)s Internet services are priced on a flat-fee basis (plus taxes and government fees). Google Fiber does not charge subscribers a usage-based fee for Internet access service and does not employ volume-based data caps.

Most other large ISPs in the US, however, do have bandwidth and data caps.