I'm amazed to see that, according to the article, the US has fallen behind Australia in terms of broadband. Our broadband is terrible, and we have a far lower population density - our country's 3/4ths the size of yours, and yet we have 1/14th the population. Worth considering for those of you that say "America's too big and sparsely populated for decent broadband".
The truly sad part of this, however, is that even this 100 Billion dollar fibre plan is still far too short-term. It amazes me that the thinking behind broadband infrastructure upgrades is still "dig a hole in the road, lay some cable, cover up and re-tar the road. Repeat." Say you do go and spend all this money, in, at best, a few decades time, you're going to have to go and do it all over again. And I suspect that bandwidth usage will continue to accelerate exponentially as people get used to the idea of downloading all their entertainment, VOIP, telecommuting and the no-doubt novel uses of bandwidth to come. So who knows how long it'll be until you have to dig up the whole country again? It seems to me there's a much smarter way to go about it: build some nice big conduits. Have the government pay for it, big enough to be easily serviceable, capable of housing potential future technologies that may require more space, and being nice and durable. Then, rent the space to the ISPs, telecoms, power utilities &c. that need the conduits. The result? A national infrastructure plan that ensures the speedy and cheap roll-out of future upgrades, as well as paying itself off and eventually even generating income for the government. As an added bonus, the idea of "big concrete pipes in the ground" is sufficiently simple that even Ted Stevens could probably understand it sufficiently to avoid completely screwing it up with technological naivety - which in my opinion is the biggest problem with governmental technology policy.
We can live in fear and magnify risks that are, in reality, very minimal, or we can realize they're minimal and stop worrying about them. Very minimal is right! Consider this think piece on the relative dangers of terrorism and peanuts. The essay he linked to: "Portrait of the modern terrorist as an idiot" mirrors my own thinking on the matters of airport security and average terrorist intelligence, for instance: why wouldn't a terrorist simply hide a dangerous NON-metallic implement under his shirt - perhaps a knife made of toughened glass or some such, to get through the metal detector? Or, better still, why bother boarding the plane at all? Surely these well-funded terrorist masterminds could see fit to sit two suburbs over from the airport with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher? I imagine if they timed it right at a peak hour, they could probably take out half a dozen aircraft and still get away to terrorise another day. But instead, we find ourselves under attack from shoe bombers who are too stupid to think that maybe they should light their explosives somewhere where they won't be seen, like, say, the toilet?
I remember reading after the London bombings that the terrorists had bought return tickets, which lead the media to surmise that they had been duped into suicide-bombing, and they had expected that they would get away. However, now that I think about it, no-one considered the possibility that they incompetently set the timers? After all, anyone who buys a return ticket on a subway line that they're planning on blowing up obviously isn't the sharpest tool in the drawer.
Whilst, in fairness, the article doesn't mention it, the Aptera Typ-1 actually has a third half-seat that can be used for a baby seat. Alternately, it can be removed to make cargo space. "The vehicle seats two in the front, with one seat in the back big enough to fit an infant car seat, according to company specs. With that seat removed and used as a cargo area, it can fit up to 15 bags of groceries or two full-size golf club bags." - So as long as you're not taking your kid golfing with you, you should be fine.
Also, the vast majority of trips made every day are with only one person in the car, which is the reason why transit lanes exist. Furthermore, as a person of over 6' height, the back seats of most two-door cars are useless for me anyway, and exceedingly uncomfortable for most people I know - so I should buy a sedan because I might need 5 seats on some rare occasion? If you have a family, maybe you'll need a sedan as well, but most families have two cars, and considering that the majority of the driving that people do is to and from work by themselves, this car makes a lot of sense for the average commuter, and as the average daily commute in the US is 20 miles, a 120 mile range seems pretty reasonable. So yeah, you won't be taking the 4 kids on a road trip to the grand canyon in it, but you won't be getting 300MPG with a Canyonaro, either... I would hardly call it "extremely limited" - it's just as specialised as any other car on the market.
...don't you see? They're already up there. Or does that mean it's 5 times more powerful than the original? Either way; it's game over man.
And why, why, why would you call it Skynet? Seriously? I mean, they're in England - that's like an hour's flight from Greece, and yet they've never heard about Hubris?
I actually made a giant Pac-Man and Two Pac-Ghosts, and put them out in a street near my house. I waited 3 hours, well past the time the plane was supposed to fly over. I didn't see it, but I'm hoping maybe I missed it while being distracted by something. In the end, the police showed up and told me to move it to the footpath, which I took as a cue to get out of the sun and go back to bed.
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I'm amazed to see that, according to the article, the US has fallen behind Australia in terms of broadband. Our broadband is terrible, and we have a far lower population density - our country's 3/4ths the size of yours, and yet we have 1/14th the population. Worth considering for those of you that say "America's too big and sparsely populated for decent broadband".
The truly sad part of this, however, is that even this 100 Billion dollar fibre plan is still far too short-term. It amazes me that the thinking behind broadband infrastructure upgrades is still "dig a hole in the road, lay some cable, cover up and re-tar the road. Repeat." Say you do go and spend all this money, in, at best, a few decades time, you're going to have to go and do it all over again. And I suspect that bandwidth usage will continue to accelerate exponentially as people get used to the idea of downloading all their entertainment, VOIP, telecommuting and the no-doubt novel uses of bandwidth to come. So who knows how long it'll be until you have to dig up the whole country again? It seems to me there's a much smarter way to go about it: build some nice big conduits. Have the government pay for it, big enough to be easily serviceable, capable of housing potential future technologies that may require more space, and being nice and durable. Then, rent the space to the ISPs, telecoms, power utilities &c. that need the conduits. The result? A national infrastructure plan that ensures the speedy and cheap roll-out of future upgrades, as well as paying itself off and eventually even generating income for the government. As an added bonus, the idea of "big concrete pipes in the ground" is sufficiently simple that even Ted Stevens could probably understand it sufficiently to avoid completely screwing it up with technological naivety - which in my opinion is the biggest problem with governmental technology policy.
I remember reading after the London bombings that the terrorists had bought return tickets, which lead the media to surmise that they had been duped into suicide-bombing, and they had expected that they would get away. However, now that I think about it, no-one considered the possibility that they incompetently set the timers? After all, anyone who buys a return ticket on a subway line that they're planning on blowing up obviously isn't the sharpest tool in the drawer.
Whilst, in fairness, the article doesn't mention it, the Aptera Typ-1 actually has a third half-seat that can be used for a baby seat. Alternately, it can be removed to make cargo space. "The vehicle seats two in the front, with one seat in the back big enough to fit an infant car seat, according to company specs. With that seat removed and used as a cargo area, it can fit up to 15 bags of groceries or two full-size golf club bags." - So as long as you're not taking your kid golfing with you, you should be fine.
Also, the vast majority of trips made every day are with only one person in the car, which is the reason why transit lanes exist. Furthermore, as a person of over 6' height, the back seats of most two-door cars are useless for me anyway, and exceedingly uncomfortable for most people I know - so I should buy a sedan because I might need 5 seats on some rare occasion? If you have a family, maybe you'll need a sedan as well, but most families have two cars, and considering that the majority of the driving that people do is to and from work by themselves, this car makes a lot of sense for the average commuter, and as the average daily commute in the US is 20 miles, a 120 mile range seems pretty reasonable. So yeah, you won't be taking the 4 kids on a road trip to the grand canyon in it, but you won't be getting 300MPG with a Canyonaro, either... I would hardly call it "extremely limited" - it's just as specialised as any other car on the market.
Plus, it is pretty damn cool looking.
...don't you see? They're already up there. Or does that mean it's 5 times more powerful than the original? Either way; it's game over man.
And why, why, why would you call it Skynet? Seriously? I mean, they're in England - that's like an hour's flight from Greece, and yet they've never heard about Hubris?
I actually made a giant Pac-Man and Two Pac-Ghosts, and put them out in a street near my house. I waited 3 hours, well past the time the plane was supposed to fly over. I didn't see it, but I'm hoping maybe I missed it while being distracted by something. In the end, the police showed up and told me to move it to the footpath, which I took as a cue to get out of the sun and go back to bed.
Perhaps you're thinking something like this? http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/07/the-pc2tv-echov iew-fm-think-itv-but-not-by-apple/
It has the added advantage of "Anything you can view on your computer you can stream to a display wirelessly" over other devices like the Apple TV