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UK Testing Wireless Broadband Via Airship
fruey writes "A team from York University, UK are about to test high altitude platforms, according to this article, as a way of bringing high-speed internet services to computer users in remote areas out of reach of broadband. They plan to use solar powered engines to keep the aerial platforms in position. The Capanina site have some more information about this stratospheric broadband experiment. More technical stuff can be found at the York University website
This technology could deliver broadband communications at data rates up to 120Mbit/s! Screw cable and xDSL, when will stratospheric be available near me?"
LAUghing OUT LOUd
hahhaahahahahahahahhahahaha
-1(stupid butt nugget)
the balloons can be used to stop the Luftwaffe from bombing your city!
(see barrage balloons).
I can remember the days when a person who owned a modem and dialed around to various bulletin boards was considered cool, mature, and intellectually superior to your garden variety computer geeks. But of course when the Internet started becoming more prevalent, bulletin boards started getting cast as low-tech and amateurish. Mid-90's: anything Linux was in, everything specifically non-Unix was out. Now it's the early 2000's and FreeBSD is the new geek fashion statement. Those who are just now jumping on the FreeBSD bandwagon are thumbing their noses down at Linux users and calling them names such as "zealots" and "half witts." (While we're here, I want the gentle reader to take a moment to ask who here is the real zealot?) New FreeBSD users are citing mostly the exact same reasons for using FreeBSD over Linux that Linux users cited for choosing Linux over Windows years ago, although they are now more subtle:
* More reliable
* More consistent
* Better performance
* Better development process
* Freer license
* Smarter developers
* Smarter users
* etc
Trust me, it will take only a few years before the Next Big Geek Trend comes along and FreeBSD will not be the playground of the elite-wannabes. Instead, it will be relegated as a hunk of code that showed definite signs of promise but was ultimately hampered by too many "n00bs" joining the FreeBSD community thereby spoiling it for everyone. Or perhaps by an archaic, inflexible, development system or crochety old too-conservative developers. The particular excuse doesn't matter, only the fact that it will have gone out of style. The next new thing will be there to take FreeBSD's place.
Don't think for a second that I don't love FreeBSD. I use it on my computers at home and have several patches on my todo list that I'd like to work on and submit to the FreeBSD developers when time permits. But I also use Linux and Windows on a regular basis as well. And I'm not going to sit here and lie to myself and others by saying that I wasn't totally infatuated with Linux and other geek trends in the past. That, I think, is the primary difference between an advocate and a zealot.
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