Where I live (Portland, OR) the On-Demand service is a mixed bag, at best. First off, it keeps telling me that certain programs are available On Demand, yet I can never find them in the menu system. There is no way on the On Demand to say "I want to watch this week's Aqua Teen Hunger Force" without trying to find what category they think it belongs in (which is also usually the wrong category).
Secondly, and this is the biggie, is that the On Demand service has infrequent jumpy video and half-second dropouts in audio. When I called the local Comcast office to complain, I pretty much got a "yeah, we know about it, and there's nothing we can do about it."
Based on those experiences, I didn't buy the PVR service, and bought a Series 2 TiVo instead. If they can't even figure out how to do the On Demand service right, I deeply suspect the PVR service won't be better.
Recent studies are showing that modern gasoline engines may actually be releasing MORE particulate emissions than modern diesel engines. The University of Minnesota did a study that shows that doing a gallon-by-gallon burned comparison between gasoline and diesel, the gasoline engine produced more particulate matter, and worse: that particulate matter had a higher toxin level.
In Europe, where diesel engines are more common in passenger cars, "PM Canisters" that collect soot and other particles are becoming commonplace. As such, the average diesel-powered car in Europe equipped with a DFP ("diesel particulate filter") is actually producing considerably less pollutants than any gasoline engine.
The killer, though, is emissions as the engine ages. For the most part, as a diesel engine begins to deteriorate from age, things tend to stay more or less constant.. in fact, in some ways, it actually gets a little better before it gets a tiny bit worse. But, in any case, it's not a dramatic change unless the engine is literally about to fail. Gasoline engines, however, start to deteriorate almost immediately (emissions performance wise), with the effective useful life of the emissions components being used up usually by the fourth year of use.
But the particulate argument is largely considered hogwash nowadays. If we banned conventional gasoline in 5 years, required everybody to switch to diesel engines, and swapped out all the state-run "Smog Check" programs with a requirement to swap out DFP canisters every two years at registration, we'd have eliminated the majority of the automotive smog issues in the US.
Now, we'd just have to stop dust storms and volcanoes.
One of the things that always has me kinda scratching my head is why nobody's making a diesel hybrid.
It would seem that with diesel's natual tendancy towards lower engine RPMs (and with most diesel engines delivering peak torque around 2500 RPM), it would make a natural fit towards a design like Toyota's (generating power which is applied to the wheels by electric motors).
In fact, that is how railroad locomotives work.
Plus, there are all kinds of advantages to using a diesel engine, including the fact that the raw materials for diesel fuel need not just be petroleum.. diesel fuel has been engineered from coal and vegetable oil, and can theoretically (although I personally haven't seen practicle examples) be made from methane.
If VW can make a turbodiesel New Beetle that can average 40-50MPG out of just swapping the gasoline engine for a diesel one, what could they do if they engineered a smaller diesel + electric motor combo?
It's absolutely amazing how many people don't RTFA or research anything, making statements like "Check your AUP" and things like that. For those people, I say: he is talking about a specific ISP (Speakeasy) that specifically PERMITS sharing, and even has a program set up (NetShare) to handle billing and such for you. Under this particular program, Speakeasy handles all the billing for you, and even gives you an additional IP address to provide to your "customer".
To answer the question, here are some pointers from somebody who is actually doing Speakeasy NetShare.
You do not need to worry (from a layman's viewpoint, IANAL, so check with your family attorney if you are worried) about filtering access. In fact, if you read the fine print of Speakeasy's documentation, you are not really permitted to do so. I was told specifically by a Speakeasy rep NOT to do this, even though I had the ability to.
Since Speakeasy will provide you with an IP address specifically for that customer, it will be easy (should fit hit the shan) to segregate your traffic from theirs. Speakeasy will be billing them seperately, so they will have their address and contact information should the RIAA/MPAA/LE come around. From a legal perspective (again, IANAL), you are no different than your local phone company.. you are only providing a conduit, passively, between the ISP (Speakeasy) and that ISP's customers (your neighbor using NetShare).
Over here, I have three specific ways of getting access. You can be plugged in to my personal LAN (which, BTW, is hardline). You can be accessing a free and open node (which runs NoCat), which is highly filtered and proxied. Or, you can be on the WPAd side of the house, which is the resale network.
Don't hesitate to participate in NetShare. It's an awesome way of reducing your monthly bill AND helping your less tech-savvy neighbors to get off AOL. Both are very worthy causes.
This service is utterly unneeded by 90% of the population that lives in USA or Canada.
I live in North Portland (Oregon). I don't need a traffic camera, website, or news station to know that traffic is screwed up on I-5. And, with Vancouver WA shutting off the buses next month, it's only gonna get worse.
Just about everywhere I've ever lived, you get to know traffic patterns well enough that you usually don't need anybody to tell you how traffic is biffed. Yeah, when I lived in LA, it was handy to know where the wrecks were, but as a general rule, it didn't help me get home any faster.. usually because all the alternate routes were congested by everybody who heard the traffic report on KFWB.
That's funny. The whole state of NH has less population than.. what, the top 50 major cities in North America? The biggest city in NH is, like... Manchester, population 100,000.
Dude. Orange County, CA... just one suburb of Los Angeles, has over twice the population of your whole freaking state. Get some perspective.
a. Again, and you have not demonstrated anything to the contrary, many of these sites are running on powerful enough machines that the slightly additional computational load will not affect them dramatically. b. Most 16-year-olds are waaay more computer literate than you are giving them credit for. To paraphrase George Carlin: "if they can program their #(%*# VCR, they can bloody well learn how to use.." a tool that says "copy this line and paste it into your registration". If that's even required: the reality of it is, it woudn't be, because the Java code would already be on the page. "This webpage will download a small Java program that will generate for us a valid token that will permit us to send you E-Mail. This should only take a few seconds". Guess what, dorkhat? Not only will this be able to generate the "stamp" for the validation E-Mail, but will effectively eliminate automated signups, too, because it will also be impossible to bulk-signup user accounts because of the same process.
I did overestimate the intelligence of one particular Internet user, however.
The whole spammer business model requires the transmission of literally tens of millions of E-mails, essentially at once. That's the whole point of "Proof of Work" systems is that they are computationally cheap for a few, but increasingly expensive as the volume goes up. Much like cracking crypto: if you have the right key, it's trivial, but if you don't, it is quite a challenge.
Wikipedia needs to send E-mails? Oddly enough, I've been a very active participant on Wikipedia, and I think the only E-mail I may have ever recieved from them was one verifying my E-mail address when I signed up. In a "Proof of Work" concept-system, I could provide (as part of my registration) a MD5 hash "stamp" that would allow their system to E-mail me without doing the work. Nearly all "proof of work" systems I've seen discussed have this ability (if not obviously stated, it's inherent in the design).
Again. Stop whining. This will not affect any legitimate E-mailer, and again might return some sanity to the E-mail system. It has the power to balance the scales, so the legit bulk e-mailers (like mailing lists, etc.) and those who want "spam free" inboxes can peacefully co-exist.
What are you using to service 40,000 users, a 486DX?
The reality is, if you are indeed servicing a large userbase who is sending a legitimate volume of E-mail, it will be computationally trivial. As computationally trivial as doing a complicated DNS lookup or a simple MD5 rehash.
Additionally, some of the proposals I've seen allow an end-user to purchase "stamps" directly, offsetting the computational costs of an ISP (this is done by running a Java client on the machine).
Lastly, all of the proposals I've seen allow for a "whitelist wormhole" that would allow a user to whitelist mailing lists that they participate in, removing the requirement that they bear "postage". In fact, one of the proposals even suggested that mail labelled as "Priority: Bulk" be allowed a free ride, because that would, finally, allow a tag that could be easily filtered against (if it contains the tag, it's spam: and if the address isn't whitelisted, it gets sent to/dev/null at the MTA), and would allow intelligent MTAs to decide how much effort to put in to delivery, allowing "stamped" E-mail to get in the front of the line.
In short, stop whining. If you have 40,000 users, and you can't afford to spend a few cycles of CPU time, you have a shitty business model, outdated computers, and/or are probably a spamhaus.
Funny. It would appear that ILECs still, essentially, have a monopoly on the local loop.
The few companies that built their own local loops have all been gobbled up by either ILECs like Verizon, or long-distance carriers AT&T and MCI. In all but a few cases, their loops consisted of fiber SONET rings in urban cores, and their service was almost universally unavailable for anybody who was ordering anything less than a T-3's worth of service.
When I ordered service through a CLEC DSL provider, Qwest still was responsible for maintaining the local loop.
When I look in my back yard phone pole, I see exactly two sets of wires. One is owned by Qwest, the other by Comcast, and the second set would provide me phone service.. by VoIP...
Re:Obligatory reference to fictional competitors
on
Inside Wal-Mart IT
·
· Score: 1
Yeah, but not all Wal-Marts sell rifles and trampolines, either. Many California stores don't sell rifles, and the new "neighborhood" stores generally don't have sporting goods.
And, there's at least one S-Mart store that does sell some sporting goods.. although, I doubt rifles.
Re:Obligatory reference to fictional competitors
on
Inside Wal-Mart IT
·
· Score: 2, Informative
S-Mart fictional?
Not in California's Central Valley. Long-time grocery chain "Save Mart" now calls themselves "S-Mart" in a number of places..
It's the Tragedy of the Commons in action, and it is not as uncommon as one might think.
In essence, IM services are "walled E-Mail gardens". I know people who aren't totally tech savvy who use services like AIM and don't use E-mail. Granted, these tend to be "gramma" types who use messaging services to chat with the kids and grandkids, but the principle remains.
And for those who say it dosen't work: AIM + whitelisting works wonders.
It may sound a bit odd to a few of us "geeks", but some people only want to hear from people they know (i.e. have been formally introduced to). Spam is only encouraging a behaviour that people already practice on the phone (with Caller ID and/or answering machines) and their front door (with the little peep-hole).. if I don't know you, I ain't gonna talk to you.
Thanks, marketing departments of the world, for helping to create a more insular society.
Sure, there are plenty of lawyers available to help you: for a fee.
Lawyers Aren't Free. Are you aware of the kind of money it costs to file a patent challenge?
Better yet: are YOU PERSONALLY willing to support that cause with your own hard earned money? We're not talking about a couple of bucks here.. it would take every one of us donating thousands to the EFF to mount a reasonably effective campaign against bogus patents...
Sounds like it's just easier (and more cost effective) to, as you put it, "wage war against the notion of patents."
But, that's not what we're talking about here (waging war): all we're talking about is removing a loophole that allows people to patent ideas: patents that describe software SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED, period.
You _CAN_ patent ideas now, apparently. That's the whole problem of software patents. It is completely possible to write a patent that describes a mechanism for "delayed reaction to user input" in vague enough terms to pass patent muster, but not cover a specific implementation of same. Since Patent Is Not Copyright(tm), you don't have to show actual code, just a reasonable enough block diagram of how it works.
Look at Amazon.Com and "one-click". The whole point of Amazon filing that patent (according to Bozos..err, Bezos) was that it was a generic enough filing to prevent anybody from coming along, doing something similar, and filing a patent on it and suing Amazon.
I'm a bit worried that it had to be eBay. eBay does not have very good corporate ethics (one only has to look at how they run PayPal, which they now wholly own, to see this in action), and in many ways they are (at best) a marginal net-citizen.
What worries me more is that Craigslist is, in essence, the competition. I hope this dosen't mean the end of it as we know it.
I think every Open Source/Free Software advocate needs to read Starhawk's "The Fifth Sacred Thing," because it seems to so adequately tell a story similar to what the FOSS movement is experiencing.
We are saying to Microsoft et. al. that there "is a place for you at our table," and all they want to do is destroy the culture we have created, even though it would really serve them no purpose.. and in fact, the existance of FOSS creates a healthy ecosystem that allows everybody to prosper.
It must be sad to live one's life so full of fear and hatred. I actually feel sorry for Ballmer, Gates, and anybody else who can't see beyond their own greed.
The exact point isn't that we won't use RF at all, but that we won't use RF high power brodcasting. It takes a lot of power for signals to leave our magnetosphere, and currently there is nothing stronger than a conventional UHF TV signal: it's broadband, and the AM video carrier often is a blistering million+ watts.
The odds of a million watt AM carrier surviving a trip light-years across space is pretty good.
Compare that to a signal from most personal communications devices, the likely long-lasting legacy from what will undoubtedly be referred to as the "radio era." FRS radios are tyipcally under a watt, and are a narrow FM signal.
The odds of a 1 watt FM signal surviving a trip light-years across space is iffy.
Compare that to a signal from a digital device like an 802.11 system or a digital communicator (cell phone, cordless phone, whatever). Make it a little more complicated.. give it an OFDM (or some other near-noise-floor FHSS system) modulation method, and a 200mW signal level.
The odds of a 200mW spread spectrum signal surviving a trip light-years across space is nanoscopic, and that's given the assumption that you know where to look.
I don't think the assertion that RF will go away entirely is the point. The point is, high power radio flatulence that can be easily seen across space and time will. Even today, the direction most RF engineering is going is lower power and better modulation methods.. partially because of regulatory requirements (OSHA's RF exposure guidelines alone has had an effect), but also because all that power costs money. If you can service the same number of viewers with 1/3rd the power, it saves a lot of money to the electric company.
Not to mention, the amount of unintentional radiation has gone down somewhat as well. RF emissions from devices that don't use RF (like generators.. or even the alternator in your car) are a sign of inefficiency, so the are slowly being engineered out of existance.
That dosen't mean we should probably stop looking: somebody who wants to be found will likely be intentionally broadcasting a beacon. But, it's a lot more plausable that such a beacon will be laser or even visible light than radio.
No, but the uplink frequencies are often in the high UHF and microwave ranges that tend to not leave the magnetosphere of this planet, and would be likely non-detectable much past Mars.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't this the same guy who was operating a toner scam some time ago, doing some insider trading, and got his ass handed to him by the FTC?
I have no faith in Comcast to do it right.
Where I live (Portland, OR) the On-Demand service is a mixed bag, at best. First off, it keeps telling me that certain programs are available On Demand, yet I can never find them in the menu system. There is no way on the On Demand to say "I want to watch this week's Aqua Teen Hunger Force" without trying to find what category they think it belongs in (which is also usually the wrong category).
Secondly, and this is the biggie, is that the On Demand service has infrequent jumpy video and half-second dropouts in audio. When I called the local Comcast office to complain, I pretty much got a "yeah, we know about it, and there's nothing we can do about it."
Based on those experiences, I didn't buy the PVR service, and bought a Series 2 TiVo instead. If they can't even figure out how to do the On Demand service right, I deeply suspect the PVR service won't be better.
Recent studies are showing that modern gasoline engines may actually be releasing MORE particulate emissions than modern diesel engines. The University of Minnesota did a study that shows that doing a gallon-by-gallon burned comparison between gasoline and diesel, the gasoline engine produced more particulate matter, and worse: that particulate matter had a higher toxin level.
In Europe, where diesel engines are more common in passenger cars, "PM Canisters" that collect soot and other particles are becoming commonplace. As such, the average diesel-powered car in Europe equipped with a DFP ("diesel particulate filter") is actually producing considerably less pollutants than any gasoline engine.
The killer, though, is emissions as the engine ages. For the most part, as a diesel engine begins to deteriorate from age, things tend to stay more or less constant.. in fact, in some ways, it actually gets a little better before it gets a tiny bit worse. But, in any case, it's not a dramatic change unless the engine is literally about to fail. Gasoline engines, however, start to deteriorate almost immediately (emissions performance wise), with the effective useful life of the emissions components being used up usually by the fourth year of use.
But the particulate argument is largely considered hogwash nowadays. If we banned conventional gasoline in 5 years, required everybody to switch to diesel engines, and swapped out all the state-run "Smog Check" programs with a requirement to swap out DFP canisters every two years at registration, we'd have eliminated the majority of the automotive smog issues in the US.
Now, we'd just have to stop dust storms and volcanoes.
One of the things that always has me kinda scratching my head is why nobody's making a diesel hybrid.
It would seem that with diesel's natual tendancy towards lower engine RPMs (and with most diesel engines delivering peak torque around 2500 RPM), it would make a natural fit towards a design like Toyota's (generating power which is applied to the wheels by electric motors).
In fact, that is how railroad locomotives work.
Plus, there are all kinds of advantages to using a diesel engine, including the fact that the raw materials for diesel fuel need not just be petroleum.. diesel fuel has been engineered from coal and vegetable oil, and can theoretically (although I personally haven't seen practicle examples) be made from methane.
If VW can make a turbodiesel New Beetle that can average 40-50MPG out of just swapping the gasoline engine for a diesel one, what could they do if they engineered a smaller diesel + electric motor combo?
It's absolutely amazing how many people don't RTFA or research anything, making statements like "Check your AUP" and things like that. For those people, I say: he is talking about a specific ISP (Speakeasy) that specifically PERMITS sharing, and even has a program set up (NetShare) to handle billing and such for you. Under this particular program, Speakeasy handles all the billing for you, and even gives you an additional IP address to provide to your "customer".
To answer the question, here are some pointers from somebody who is actually doing Speakeasy NetShare.
You do not need to worry (from a layman's viewpoint, IANAL, so check with your family attorney if you are worried) about filtering access. In fact, if you read the fine print of Speakeasy's documentation, you are not really permitted to do so. I was told specifically by a Speakeasy rep NOT to do this, even though I had the ability to.
Since Speakeasy will provide you with an IP address specifically for that customer, it will be easy (should fit hit the shan) to segregate your traffic from theirs. Speakeasy will be billing them seperately, so they will have their address and contact information should the RIAA/MPAA/LE come around. From a legal perspective (again, IANAL), you are no different than your local phone company.. you are only providing a conduit, passively, between the ISP (Speakeasy) and that ISP's customers (your neighbor using NetShare).
Over here, I have three specific ways of getting access. You can be plugged in to my personal LAN (which, BTW, is hardline). You can be accessing a free and open node (which runs NoCat), which is highly filtered and proxied. Or, you can be on the WPAd side of the house, which is the resale network.
Don't hesitate to participate in NetShare. It's an awesome way of reducing your monthly bill AND helping your less tech-savvy neighbors to get off AOL. Both are very worthy causes.
Apparently, for trying to convince an idiot that a well-thought out system might work.
Wasted breath on a fool, apparently.
I live in North Portland (Oregon). I don't need a traffic camera, website, or news station to know that traffic is screwed up on I-5. And, with Vancouver WA shutting off the buses next month, it's only gonna get worse.
Just about everywhere I've ever lived, you get to know traffic patterns well enough that you usually don't need anybody to tell you how traffic is biffed. Yeah, when I lived in LA, it was handy to know where the wrecks were, but as a general rule, it didn't help me get home any faster.. usually because all the alternate routes were congested by everybody who heard the traffic report on KFWB.
That's funny. The whole state of NH has less population than.. what, the top 50 major cities in North America? The biggest city in NH is, like... Manchester, population 100,000.
Dude. Orange County, CA... just one suburb of Los Angeles, has over twice the population of your whole freaking state. Get some perspective.
a. Again, and you have not demonstrated anything to the contrary, many of these sites are running on powerful enough machines that the slightly additional computational load will not affect them dramatically.
b. Most 16-year-olds are waaay more computer literate than you are giving them credit for. To paraphrase George Carlin: "if they can program their #(%*# VCR, they can bloody well learn how to use.." a tool that says "copy this line and paste it into your registration". If that's even required: the reality of it is, it woudn't be, because the Java code would already be on the page. "This webpage will download a small Java program that will generate for us a valid token that will permit us to send you E-Mail. This should only take a few seconds". Guess what, dorkhat? Not only will this be able to generate the "stamp" for the validation E-Mail, but will effectively eliminate automated signups, too, because it will also be impossible to bulk-signup user accounts because of the same process.
I did overestimate the intelligence of one particular Internet user, however.
No, it won't be trivial for spammers.
The whole spammer business model requires the transmission of literally tens of millions of E-mails, essentially at once. That's the whole point of "Proof of Work" systems is that they are computationally cheap for a few, but increasingly expensive as the volume goes up. Much like cracking crypto: if you have the right key, it's trivial, but if you don't, it is quite a challenge.
Wikipedia needs to send E-mails? Oddly enough, I've been a very active participant on Wikipedia, and I think the only E-mail I may have ever recieved from them was one verifying my E-mail address when I signed up. In a "Proof of Work" concept-system, I could provide (as part of my registration) a MD5 hash "stamp" that would allow their system to E-mail me without doing the work. Nearly all "proof of work" systems I've seen discussed have this ability (if not obviously stated, it's inherent in the design).
Again. Stop whining. This will not affect any legitimate E-mailer, and again might return some sanity to the E-mail system. It has the power to balance the scales, so the legit bulk e-mailers (like mailing lists, etc.) and those who want "spam free" inboxes can peacefully co-exist.
What are you using to service 40,000 users, a 486DX?
/dev/null at the MTA), and would allow intelligent MTAs to decide how much effort to put in to delivery, allowing "stamped" E-mail to get in the front of the line.
The reality is, if you are indeed servicing a large userbase who is sending a legitimate volume of E-mail, it will be computationally trivial. As computationally trivial as doing a complicated DNS lookup or a simple MD5 rehash.
Additionally, some of the proposals I've seen allow an end-user to purchase "stamps" directly, offsetting the computational costs of an ISP (this is done by running a Java client on the machine).
Lastly, all of the proposals I've seen allow for a "whitelist wormhole" that would allow a user to whitelist mailing lists that they participate in, removing the requirement that they bear "postage". In fact, one of the proposals even suggested that mail labelled as "Priority: Bulk" be allowed a free ride, because that would, finally, allow a tag that could be easily filtered against (if it contains the tag, it's spam: and if the address isn't whitelisted, it gets sent to
In short, stop whining. If you have 40,000 users, and you can't afford to spend a few cycles of CPU time, you have a shitty business model, outdated computers, and/or are probably a spamhaus.
Talk to Kevin Mitnick about "no computer use."
He couldn't even review some of the evidence against him, because it was.. guess what? Stored in a computer.
No, it supports POP3 from anybody.
Funny. It would appear that ILECs still, essentially, have a monopoly on the local loop.
The few companies that built their own local loops have all been gobbled up by either ILECs like Verizon, or long-distance carriers AT&T and MCI. In all but a few cases, their loops consisted of fiber SONET rings in urban cores, and their service was almost universally unavailable for anybody who was ordering anything less than a T-3's worth of service.
When I ordered service through a CLEC DSL provider, Qwest still was responsible for maintaining the local loop.
When I look in my back yard phone pole, I see exactly two sets of wires. One is owned by Qwest, the other by Comcast, and the second set would provide me phone service.. by VoIP...
Yeah, but not all Wal-Marts sell rifles and trampolines, either. Many California stores don't sell rifles, and the new "neighborhood" stores generally don't have sporting goods.
And, there's at least one S-Mart store that does sell some sporting goods.. although, I doubt rifles.
S-Mart fictional?
Not in California's Central Valley. Long-time grocery chain "Save Mart" now calls themselves "S-Mart" in a number of places..
It's the Tragedy of the Commons in action, and it is not as uncommon as one might think.
In essence, IM services are "walled E-Mail gardens". I know people who aren't totally tech savvy who use services like AIM and don't use E-mail. Granted, these tend to be "gramma" types who use messaging services to chat with the kids and grandkids, but the principle remains.
And for those who say it dosen't work: AIM + whitelisting works wonders.
It may sound a bit odd to a few of us "geeks", but some people only want to hear from people they know (i.e. have been formally introduced to). Spam is only encouraging a behaviour that people already practice on the phone (with Caller ID and/or answering machines) and their front door (with the little peep-hole).. if I don't know you, I ain't gonna talk to you.
Thanks, marketing departments of the world, for helping to create a more insular society.
Yes, they specifically make an "air travel edition" that dosen't feature pointies.
Their website including the relevant part numbers.
Sure, there are plenty of lawyers available to help you: for a fee.
Lawyers Aren't Free. Are you aware of the kind of money it costs to file a patent challenge?
Better yet: are YOU PERSONALLY willing to support that cause with your own hard earned money? We're not talking about a couple of bucks here.. it would take every one of us donating thousands to the EFF to mount a reasonably effective campaign against bogus patents...
Sounds like it's just easier (and more cost effective) to, as you put it, "wage war against the notion of patents."
But, that's not what we're talking about here (waging war): all we're talking about is removing a loophole that allows people to patent ideas: patents that describe software SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED, period.
You missed the whole arguement.
You _CAN_ patent ideas now, apparently. That's the whole problem of software patents. It is completely possible to write a patent that describes a mechanism for "delayed reaction to user input" in vague enough terms to pass patent muster, but not cover a specific implementation of same. Since Patent Is Not Copyright(tm), you don't have to show actual code, just a reasonable enough block diagram of how it works.
Look at Amazon.Com and "one-click". The whole point of Amazon filing that patent (according to Bozos..err, Bezos) was that it was a generic enough filing to prevent anybody from coming along, doing something similar, and filing a patent on it and suing Amazon.
Yeah.
Except, I've never been asked to remove a Magic Mountain T-Shirt walking into Disneyland.
Well, I for one didn't see this coming.
I'm a bit worried that it had to be eBay. eBay does not have very good corporate ethics (one only has to look at how they run PayPal, which they now wholly own, to see this in action), and in many ways they are (at best) a marginal net-citizen.
What worries me more is that Craigslist is, in essence, the competition. I hope this dosen't mean the end of it as we know it.
I think every Open Source/Free Software advocate needs to read Starhawk's "The Fifth Sacred Thing," because it seems to so adequately tell a story similar to what the FOSS movement is experiencing.
We are saying to Microsoft et. al. that there "is a place for you at our table," and all they want to do is destroy the culture we have created, even though it would really serve them no purpose.. and in fact, the existance of FOSS creates a healthy ecosystem that allows everybody to prosper.
It must be sad to live one's life so full of fear and hatred. I actually feel sorry for Ballmer, Gates, and anybody else who can't see beyond their own greed.
The exact point isn't that we won't use RF at all, but that we won't use RF high power brodcasting. It takes a lot of power for signals to leave our magnetosphere, and currently there is nothing stronger than a conventional UHF TV signal: it's broadband, and the AM video carrier often is a blistering million+ watts.
The odds of a million watt AM carrier surviving a trip light-years across space is pretty good.
Compare that to a signal from most personal communications devices, the likely long-lasting legacy from what will undoubtedly be referred to as the "radio era." FRS radios are tyipcally under a watt, and are a narrow FM signal.
The odds of a 1 watt FM signal surviving a trip light-years across space is iffy.
Compare that to a signal from a digital device like an 802.11 system or a digital communicator (cell phone, cordless phone, whatever). Make it a little more complicated.. give it an OFDM (or some other near-noise-floor FHSS system) modulation method, and a 200mW signal level.
The odds of a 200mW spread spectrum signal surviving a trip light-years across space is nanoscopic, and that's given the assumption that you know where to look.
I don't think the assertion that RF will go away entirely is the point. The point is, high power radio flatulence that can be easily seen across space and time will. Even today, the direction most RF engineering is going is lower power and better modulation methods.. partially because of regulatory requirements (OSHA's RF exposure guidelines alone has had an effect), but also because all that power costs money. If you can service the same number of viewers with 1/3rd the power, it saves a lot of money to the electric company.
Not to mention, the amount of unintentional radiation has gone down somewhat as well. RF emissions from devices that don't use RF (like generators.. or even the alternator in your car) are a sign of inefficiency, so the are slowly being engineered out of existance.
That dosen't mean we should probably stop looking: somebody who wants to be found will likely be intentionally broadcasting a beacon. But, it's a lot more plausable that such a beacon will be laser or even visible light than radio.
No, but the uplink frequencies are often in the high UHF and microwave ranges that tend to not leave the magnetosphere of this planet, and would be likely non-detectable much past Mars.