If it does not have mass, then it cannot go slower than the speed of light, and it cannot go faster either. Mass or not mass is not the issue. Don't confuse information with its embodiment in a communication medium. They are different things.
Yes, it can. The speed of light is a limit on "physical" objects, and information is not a physical object, though it may sometimes be represented in terms of physical objects.
The classic demonstration of this is to consider an open pair of scissors which are cosmologically "long". When the scissor blades are closing, the point where the two blade edges come together "moves" away from the hinge point, and the further out it goes, the faster it goes and is not limited by the speed of light since the point is not physical.
That is how I reacted, too. Here is a clip from the Wikipedia discussion on the Department of Education:
"The agency's official acronym is ED (and not DOE, which refers to the United States Department of Energy). It is also often abbreviated informally as DoED."
Good on you! That sounds like the right thing to do. I don't live in the US any more, so I have no Congressman to write. But leaving Texas to stew in it might be just right. (Full disclosure: I was born and bred in Texas, but I do not subscribe to the positions of the OP.)
But the textbook companies will not stand up to it. The Texas School Board has been influencing textbooks for all of America for many decades. Texas is a populous state, so it is a big market for textbooks. Furthermore, Texas is unique in that textbooks are adopted statewide for all the schools in the state. That means huge numbers for the publishers, and that gives the publishers' ears to the School Board.
I do not remember the attempts at influence of the fundamentalists to be quite so blatant in the past. Perhaps they are becoming emboldened in these times of the Tea Parties.
Even those doctors who have their own premises and "hang out their shingle" are often associates (perhaps employees) of larger organizations who are the providers of healthcare services. That is certainly true in California.
Where I live now there is a national health system. Doctors are essentially employees of the government, and their fees are heavily regulated. Each doctor visit has a fee charged to the patient, and then the doctor gets something from the government as well.
There are specialist doctors who practice privately as well, and they are quite expensive.
Because the government buys all the pharmaceuticals, they are negotiated to very cheap prices. I pay only $3 per prescription, and that is basically a fee to the pharmacy, not the drug company or the government.
Interestingly, if you simply go to comodo.com you are introduced to only their non-free version of the antivirus, which costs $49 per annum. It is a bit tricky to find your way around the website to find the free version, which does exist.
I actually use Avast!, and am quite happy with it. I think I will not change anyway soon. And I like the voice messages on updates from Avast!
I don't think our local exchange likes for houses to be built in its backyard. No one around here gets speeds that high.
I like your remark about the bottleneck. Whenever I read about the government's program to bring high-speed broadband to 75% of Kiwis in the next 10 years (and my residence is always listed just outside that 75%), I wonder who will fix the skinny straw that NZ sucks data through. Fiber to the door will not deliver data faster from the rest of the world. I do see there is a consortium planning to put in a new cable, but I can only wonder if they will be successfully funded.
It is done all the time. Often things like logfiles, etc will have a date as part of the file name. e.g. logfile-20100315.log
If the date is expressed as yyyymmdd then the list of files can be sorted as characters and fall into chronological order, which can be very beneficial. If done within a program, then the date type can be sorted by its own rules. It may be advantageous sometimes to keep the date in the string form and sort that way.
Figures. The one and only big city gets lots of good stuff, and we out in the provinces get the crumbs left over. Nonetheless, I download as much as I ever want, and rarely exceed 10 GB per month.
Nah, the info just has not appeared in the local newspaper. And, to think of it, maybe that is not so surprising. If the information was filtered, then how could I see it on Slashdot?
In my book, corruption would be related to influence of outside agents on the government actions. As I read what happened, it sounds just like typical NZ government action, probably based on not wanting to appear the fool to all and sundry.
Where on earth do you live in NZ that you can get 8-12 mbps internet? I have never heard of that being possible. Remember in NZ, anything over 256kbps is still considered broadband.
Back in October I was looking for a new broadband plan since my old one was being discontinued by Telecom. I don't think at that time I saw ANY that offered as much as 25GB. Certainly I did not see any for $50. I wound up taking a "naked DSL" plan with Voip telephone and unlimited-speed internet for which I pay by the GB used, giving me essentially no cap. It is only $1 per GB.
Given the 1-3 mb/s service I get typically, I don't know how I could manage to download as much as 25 GB.
I am having trouble reconciling the figures published here with my own experience in NZ.
Me, too. I live in NZ, and this article on Slashdot is the first I have heard of this filtering in NZ. That seems strange.
On the other hand, the government can and does spend huge amounts of time sensing the opinions and feelings of the people only to then ignore them and ham-handedly put into place whatever policies it wanted to in the first place. All the while beating its chest over how democratic it is. BS.
Are cellphone signals in the microwave band? I don't know, but I have always believed them not to be. Microwaves definitely can be dangerous, but other radiation bands may or may not be so. Given that cell towers are trying to blanket a wide region of space in all directions to provide service, I would suspect that they are not microwaves. Microwaves generally are used for highly directional signaling, such as point-to-point communication.
For a lifetime of computer programming, one does not need to know Fourier transforms, unless one is programming an analysis program that uses them. The point of the discussion is that of appreciating algorithm complexity and the "big O" properties of algorithms. The fast Fourier transform algorithm is a beautiful example of how effective algorithm design can be in dropping complexity and computation time to calculate the Fourier transform, which in its original form is based on continuous mathematics of some complexity.
This has given me a glimpse to a darker side of Indian offshore consulting, which I've actually talked a lot with several of my Indian colleagues who also agree on this: you can end up with a consulting firm that sells the idea of development guided by a a top-notch architect, and you swallow the tripe. And then the top-notch architect designs a system which looks solid, then he moves to another project. Then the consulting firm gets a whole bunch of sophomore kids from college find ways to replicate GOTO statements in Java to do the implementation. My first encounter with such practices from such a consulting team was when I was working together with an Indian colleague of mine (a really good software developer) in trying to make sense out of the mess. When we looked at the code and the original design, all we could do was say "WTF?".
Back in the day, about 15 years ago, I had very similar experience outsourcing software maintenance to a firm in India. A couple of good guys came over to discuss the deal, and we were very pleased. They turned out to front a team of much, much less experienced people, and there were considerable pressures on the good guys to move to other projects. We were able to say NO. The shiny computers that were assured they were well-equipped with turned out to be mirage, and though we insisted in the contract they be completely legit, they did everything on pirated Microsoft products, which was not to our liking. The connectivity was always intermittent, and it was really difficult to communicate. Power failures seemed endemic. Eventually all worked out OK, and the contract ended amicably. Good luck to you.
Slashdot Mirror
If it does not have mass, then it cannot go slower than the speed of light, and it cannot go faster either. Mass or not mass is not the issue. Don't confuse information with its embodiment in a communication medium. They are different things.
Yes, it can. The speed of light is a limit on "physical" objects, and information is not a physical object, though it may sometimes be represented in terms of physical objects.
The classic demonstration of this is to consider an open pair of scissors which are cosmologically "long". When the scissor blades are closing, the point where the two blade edges come together "moves" away from the hinge point, and the further out it goes, the faster it goes and is not limited by the speed of light since the point is not physical.
Or something like that.
That is how I reacted, too. Here is a clip from the Wikipedia discussion on the Department of Education:
"The agency's official acronym is ED (and not DOE, which refers to the United States Department of Energy). It is also often abbreviated informally as DoED."
Good on you! That sounds like the right thing to do. I don't live in the US any more, so I have no Congressman to write. But leaving Texas to stew in it might be just right. (Full disclosure: I was born and bred in Texas, but I do not subscribe to the positions of the OP.)
But the textbook companies will not stand up to it. The Texas School Board has been influencing textbooks for all of America for many decades. Texas is a populous state, so it is a big market for textbooks. Furthermore, Texas is unique in that textbooks are adopted statewide for all the schools in the state. That means huge numbers for the publishers, and that gives the publishers' ears to the School Board.
I do not remember the attempts at influence of the fundamentalists to be quite so blatant in the past. Perhaps they are becoming emboldened in these times of the Tea Parties.
Even those doctors who have their own premises and "hang out their shingle" are often associates (perhaps employees) of larger organizations who are the providers of healthcare services. That is certainly true in California.
Where I live now there is a national health system. Doctors are essentially employees of the government, and their fees are heavily regulated. Each doctor visit has a fee charged to the patient, and then the doctor gets something from the government as well.
There are specialist doctors who practice privately as well, and they are quite expensive.
Because the government buys all the pharmaceuticals, they are negotiated to very cheap prices. I pay only $3 per prescription, and that is basically a fee to the pharmacy, not the drug company or the government.
Amen.
Government is why these things cost so little in other countries. Why can't the US do as well?
Interestingly, if you simply go to comodo.com you are introduced to only their non-free version of the antivirus, which costs $49 per annum. It is a bit tricky to find your way around the website to find the free version, which does exist.
I actually use Avast!, and am quite happy with it. I think I will not change anyway soon. And I like the voice messages on updates from Avast!
Finally, someone actually takes the trouble to address the OP question. Thanks.
I am retired, and living in the provinces, so news can be iffy.
/. first.
I quite agree with you about the DIA not keeping it secret. I just had not heard of it, and I was kind of surprised to see it on
'Nuff said.
I don't think our local exchange likes for houses to be built in its backyard. No one around here gets speeds that high.
I like your remark about the bottleneck. Whenever I read about the government's program to bring high-speed broadband to 75% of Kiwis in the next 10 years (and my residence is always listed just outside that 75%), I wonder who will fix the skinny straw that NZ sucks data through. Fiber to the door will not deliver data faster from the rest of the world. I do see there is a consortium planning to put in a new cable, but I can only wonder if they will be successfully funded.
Depends on which source your local news comes from. I find mine tends to be lacking often.
It is done all the time. Often things like logfiles, etc will have a date as part of the file name. e.g. logfile-20100315.log If the date is expressed as yyyymmdd then the list of files can be sorted as characters and fall into chronological order, which can be very beneficial. If done within a program, then the date type can be sorted by its own rules. It may be advantageous sometimes to keep the date in the string form and sort that way.
Figures. The one and only big city gets lots of good stuff, and we out in the provinces get the crumbs left over. Nonetheless, I download as much as I ever want, and rarely exceed 10 GB per month.
Nah, the info just has not appeared in the local newspaper. And, to think of it, maybe that is not so surprising. If the information was filtered, then how could I see it on Slashdot?
In my book, corruption would be related to influence of outside agents on the government actions. As I read what happened, it sounds just like typical NZ government action, probably based on not wanting to appear the fool to all and sundry.
Where on earth do you live in NZ that you can get 8-12 mbps internet? I have never heard of that being possible. Remember in NZ, anything over 256kbps is still considered broadband.
Back in October I was looking for a new broadband plan since my old one was being discontinued by Telecom. I don't think at that time I saw ANY that offered as much as 25GB. Certainly I did not see any for $50. I wound up taking a "naked DSL" plan with Voip telephone and unlimited-speed internet for which I pay by the GB used, giving me essentially no cap. It is only $1 per GB. Given the 1-3 mb/s service I get typically, I don't know how I could manage to download as much as 25 GB. I am having trouble reconciling the figures published here with my own experience in NZ.
And how does this discussion relate to government corruption? Not at all that I can see.
Me, too. I live in NZ, and this article on Slashdot is the first I have heard of this filtering in NZ. That seems strange. On the other hand, the government can and does spend huge amounts of time sensing the opinions and feelings of the people only to then ignore them and ham-handedly put into place whatever policies it wanted to in the first place. All the while beating its chest over how democratic it is. BS.
Are cellphone signals in the microwave band? I don't know, but I have always believed them not to be. Microwaves definitely can be dangerous, but other radiation bands may or may not be so. Given that cell towers are trying to blanket a wide region of space in all directions to provide service, I would suspect that they are not microwaves. Microwaves generally are used for highly directional signaling, such as point-to-point communication.
For a lifetime of computer programming, one does not need to know Fourier transforms, unless one is programming an analysis program that uses them. The point of the discussion is that of appreciating algorithm complexity and the "big O" properties of algorithms. The fast Fourier transform algorithm is a beautiful example of how effective algorithm design can be in dropping complexity and computation time to calculate the Fourier transform, which in its original form is based on continuous mathematics of some complexity.
This has given me a glimpse to a darker side of Indian offshore consulting, which I've actually talked a lot with several of my Indian colleagues who also agree on this: you can end up with a consulting firm that sells the idea of development guided by a a top-notch architect, and you swallow the tripe. And then the top-notch architect designs a system which looks solid, then he moves to another project. Then the consulting firm gets a whole bunch of sophomore kids from college find ways to replicate GOTO statements in Java to do the implementation. My first encounter with such practices from such a consulting team was when I was working together with an Indian colleague of mine (a really good software developer) in trying to make sense out of the mess. When we looked at the code and the original design, all we could do was say "WTF?".
Back in the day, about 15 years ago, I had very similar experience outsourcing software maintenance to a firm in India. A couple of good guys came over to discuss the deal, and we were very pleased. They turned out to front a team of much, much less experienced people, and there were considerable pressures on the good guys to move to other projects. We were able to say NO. The shiny computers that were assured they were well-equipped with turned out to be mirage, and though we insisted in the contract they be completely legit, they did everything on pirated Microsoft products, which was not to our liking. The connectivity was always intermittent, and it was really difficult to communicate. Power failures seemed endemic. Eventually all worked out OK, and the contract ended amicably. Good luck to you.
Except when artists lose money ... works better for me.