Actually it's because the galaxy is almost entirely hydrogen, which emits blue light.
What they picked up was infra-red light. By shining that through a prism, you get the elements the galaxy is composed of. From the elements you can get the original color (all elements radiate a very specific set of frequencies that act like a fingerprint). Compare the original color to the observed color, which has shifted so far it has gone from up near violet down into the infra-red, and you get distance and therefore age.
If we are able to find anything older than these we'll probably have to start looking at sub-infrared radiation. I don't know how you get a prism to split radio waves, though.
Elements emit light at characteristic colors - frequencies of light.
To clarify so the GP doesn't think copper emits some blurred haze of green, elements emit very specific wavelenths of light that can be easily differentiated when the light is separated via a prism.
You'll see bands of light of various strenghts, and very conspicuous black lines at frequencies where it does not emit any light. Because the light was emmitted at the exact same moment (by definition), the redshift is exactly the same for all frequencies. The pattern never changes even though the the light all shifts red.
From these patterns, we know exactly what distant stars are made of. Because we have all of these elements on Earth, we know exactly what color they start out as, and exactly what their pattern is.
So, to sum up, splitting the light with a prism gives us the pattern. The pattern is compared to known elements to give us the element(s) the star is made of. The element(s) gives us the original color, which we can use to compare against the observed light. The observed red-shift from the original color gives us the distance.
According to TFA, hydrogen re-ionization when most of the universe was still opaque, gassy hydrogen and was not burning in the form of stars, blocks almost all of the light from 400 million to 900 million years after the BB. The only reason these galaxies were visible is because they believe they had extremely efficient hydrogen ionization, which is also why they were so blue. Before 400 million years post BB you have stars and galaxies only just forming, so I don't think there would be much in the way of light at all to be seen.
Also remember that the Big Bang is not an explosion in space, it's an explosion of space, so there might not be any visible light emmitted at all from the very beginning.
I believe the only reason they can see these galaxies is because they were blue to begin with.
They are using Hubble's infra-red telescope to see them, so that should tell you how far they have shifted. Obviously the pretty picture has been adjusted back to the original color. If you'll notice, the older galaxies (from 600 mil years post Big Bang) are a darker blue than the younger (700 mil years post BB).
The next ones they find will probably have to be pushing violet.
Google is already in the ebook business, teaming up with Sony to produce their public domain books in ePub format - which happens to be an open standard that is quickly becoming the most popular format outside of Amazon's proprietary format for the Kindle.
ASCII isn't that great for ebooks. You need a format that will get you closer to the functionality of a book, with things like TOC that links to sections of the book, page jumping within the book, etc.
Also having a few standard publishing formats and the ability to use images is a big need.
That's why I like ePub, it's based on an open standard and while it has optional DRM, it isn't controlled by any one company the way Kindle's DRM is. Project Gutenberg does ePub, even, and all of Google's PD books are available in ePub via the Sony store for free.
You could almost think of ePub as a super-advanced ASCII for books.
I wonder how that would work out in court. They would obviously sue in the US, since they'd have no case in Australia, and of course they wouldn't sue for a single book, but if you download a copy of a book in Australia yet actually recieve it in America, have you broken American copyright law?
Again, I'd prefer an open standard with no DRM. But Kindle is probably the best we're going to get.
ePub, it's an open standard with optional DRM (it's up to the publisher), but even the DRM is sane and not all that restrictive. Sony uses it now exclusively, and B&N will sell it to you as an option (they have their own proprietary format similar to Kindle's as well). Plus there are a dozen more online retailers who sell ePub, and Project Gutenberg has converted everything to ePub.
I really hope it grows quickly enough to stomp out the Kindle's proprietary bull, but Amazon is a giant in this young business, so who knows.
That's why I never ever recommend the Kindle. They have far too much control over your legitimately purchased books, and you can never move them as far as I know.
That's why I like ePub, which is gaining ground fast. And it is much easier for publishers to use Adobe's tools for ePub books than the Kindle, so a lot of them are publishing in ePub, and then converting to Kindle.
Yes it has DRM, but it treats e-books as books and is only really there to try to make an ebook about as hard to copy as a normal book. It has provisions built in for lending and sharing and such. It even lets libraries in on the act, it's great, the most sensible format I've come accross so far.
Plus Adobe has a free reader for your PC if you really want to read the books that way.
It's not an LCD technically or figuratively, or any other way you could mean it. Liquid Chrystal Displays require Liquid Chrystals, e-ink has none. That makes a big difference because LCDs require light to pass through them to illuminate them, where e-ink interchanges dots of pigment, which reflect light - no backlight required.
That is what gives e-ink a contrast almost identical to the printed word, using nothing but reflected light.
Most TFT LCDs in portable devices and computer monitors do need a continuous refresh. You're thinking of LCDs in calculators and crap, which don't. LCD refresh is normally around 60hz.
The bigger problem is the flourescent light in most LCDs though, because that certainly does cause eyestrain. Haven't you ever had to go through an office ergonomics whatchamajigger? They tell you to look at your monitor no more than 10 minutes at a time to reduce eye strain. Looking at an LCD for too long without breaks causes headaches. It's no bueno.
So much for reading a book, eh?
This Blio e-reader isn't taking on the Kindle, it's taking on Adobe Digital Editions. The Blio is targeting an entirely different market, namely people who have not yet known the joy of a good ebook reader, or for some reason don't like them.
God, you must have the worst case of ADD in history. Do you turn pages in a book and have enough time to think maybe your arm is broken because it took so long? Because that's about how long it takes, a normal page turn.
Even the old ones (I have a prs-500) only take a half second to turn the page, unless you are doing something funky like custom fonts and stuff like that. If yours was taking longer than that then you were probably using an oddly formatted book, or perhaps a pdf and the particular model you were using wasn't so great at them. The new ones I know are faster, I've seen them. In any case I've read a half dozen books on mine and never thought it was outrageously slow. Slower than an LCD, yes, but it's not an LCD, and it looks a hundred times better for print than an LCD.
For heaven's sake it's made to replace a book, you're not supposed to be spending much time on the book selection page, or digging around in the options, you're supposed to be reading a friggin book!
I have a friend who briefly sold Kirby vaccuumes. From what I hear their best customers end up being their own salesmen sometimes, and judging from him.... he seemed so sold you almost thought he would end up buying one if he stayed with it.
To be fair, Kirby's are bitchin vacuums. If you've never owned one, you're missing out. They last practically forever too. My parents had one that they got used and kept it for about 10 years before the hose finally wore out. They then bought another used Kirby and have been using it for the past 5 or 6 years.
I just wish they weren't so expensive, I have a cheapo $60 vacuum and man does it suck, and not in the good way. I think when it finally dies I'm going to get a Kirby. They are similar in quality to an Orreck, but Orreck takes the path of making the vacuum as light as possible, while Kirbies just throw in power-assist and keep the things monstrous. That makes them solid and very durable.
Am I the only one that noticed that all they did for this "study" was ask twins if they both had G-spots? I mean, seriously?
This wasn't "research", this was a survey. Given the fact that finding the G-spot is largely dependant on your partner, two twins could easily have different experiences.
What they should have done is if one twin reported having a G-spot and the other did not, then test both women in the same spot (the area the first twin reported the g-spot to be located). If they are both stimulated the same, boom, you've found your g-spot. If only the twin who reported the g-spot showed increased stimulation, then you know it's all psychological.
You could then compare the results to known stimulators, like the clitoris, and see if the g-spot is really any better.
It's called the Meisner effect, it's well documented. Super-conductor + high magnetism = floaty floaty. The superconducter literally repels the magnetism. It is this property that mag-lev trains rely on to move along the track with almost zero friction.
They said the unobtanium was a superconductor, and the "vortex" was also fairly obviously an area with a shifting, extremely powerful magnetic field. Unobtainium + Vortex = floaty mountains.
As I recall most of the arrows did not penetrate. They were also more like small spears shot from an ancient Roman scorpion war machine, given the size and strength of the Navi relative to the humans. Even so, a 50cal machine gun should have penetrated much better than the arrows.
It works the other way around too, and that area was not a good source of unobtainium in the ground, but it did have an unusually high magnetism (the "vortex"). So, what unobtainium was in the area could concievably have ripped out of the ground if the magnetism was high enough.
As for the GP asking why they would not have mined the floating rocks, good god man, just think about how difficult a flying mining operation would be!
No, the little blue light thingy was a magnet. Unobtanium was a superconductor. Magnet + superconductor = floaty, it's known as the Meisner effect.
Though they didn't say so, the "vortex" was pretty obviously an area where the magnetic field was incredibly high. You can infer this from the instruments going haywire and the rock formations that look like magnetic lines of force. It was like a super magnet.
In other words, unobtainium + vortex = floaty mountains. Elsewhere the magnetism simply wasn't strong enough to lift the unobtanium very high, certainly not enough to cause it to rip out of the earth.
Your missing a little background information, and that is the "unobtainium" was a superconductor at ambient temperature. Also, it should have been plain that the "vortex" where the floating mountains were was an area of abnormaly high magnetism, given the way it screwed up the instruments.
Super-conductor + high magnetism = Meisner effect, aka "floaty mountains". The rest of the planet was at slightly lower magnetism than the earth, so it would be a little easier to trap the unobtainium in the ground in areas that did not have the abnormal magnetism.
Perfectly scientific basis for the floaty mountains as long as you accept the basic premises - i.e. a naturally occuring superconducter at room temperature and an area of a planet with extreme, fairly localized, magnetism.
I found it odd that the invaders found it necessary to go straight down when mining, instead of mining at an angle, as though strip mining was the only option. Given the technology they had, there probably was not much of a reason they couldn't have worked around the Navi's requirements and still gotten to the ore.
Odds are that the house you are in RIGHT NOW was taken by a cascade of force, torture, and broken promises from a native peoples that, largely, welcomed your forefathers with open arms.
That's completely false. First off, only a portion of the native population were friendly, the rest scalped white people whenever they could find them, and hung the scalps from their belts as trophies. There were a few friendly native nations, but a great many were hostile.
Second, the natives themselves were constantly at war with each other, taking land and property by a "cascade of force, torture, and broken promises". The Europeans were simply a new player in the game, and they won. Yes, dirty deals were made by unscrupulous Europeans, but at the same time the native population never claimed any land. In their minds it was they who were scamming the newcomers. "You want to pay us to use land that we don't own? SURE! Sounds wonderful!". They only really lost out because the Europeans DID claim land, and vigorously defended it.
This idea that the native American population was kindhearted and gentle and severely wronged by the European invaders is foolish and not based in reality.
Third, I don't know a whole lot of people who live in houses over 100 years old, and the native americans never claimed ownership of any land. So who, exactly, is living in a house that was taken by "a cascade of force, torture, and broken promises from a native peoples that, largely, welcomed your forefathers with open arms"?
You are living in a fantasy land. The fact is, the newcomers played the same game the native's were playing, the newcomers were just better equiped, and so they won. In fact, I personally think that, while it is a nice gesture to try to allow natives to live as they once did by giving them their own land to do with as they will (aka reservations), in practice it does more harm than good. Better to just intigrate.
There is nothing for a modern American to feel guilty for, and in fact any guilt at all is based on a lack of understanding of history.
That's the firewall doing all the security in a NAT device. NAT itself facilitates connections between private and public addresses, by definition it makes the private addresses more accessible to the public. That's kinda the opposite of improving security, is it not? But we do it because it makes expansion cheaper, and actualy does provide a single gateway from which we can protect the private addresses.
That should not be confused with NAT providing security, it doesn't do anything of the kind.
Sure it does, they're not reachable from the Internet. How is that not helpful?
Actually, NAT is what makes it possible for a private address to interface with a public address and vice versa. They certainly are reachable from the Internet with NAT, that's the whole point of NAT.
You're confusing NAT with the built-in firewall that almost all NAT routers have, which hides the private addresses from the public. It is included because it is cheap to do a simple firewall, and the NAT device is a sensible place to put it as it is a single point of entry.
If you want to test this out, throw your privately-addressed computer on your router's DMZ (which is not under the protection of the internal firewall), and then record how many random hits from the internet you get. If what you say about NAT is true, you'll get none. I guarantee you will get a boatload.
I have Clear, and for the price in my area it can't be beat. My area pretty much sucks for price and performance though.
In my area you can get upwards of 2mbps, which is obviously not much, but it has the benefit of being portable within the city - a benefit I have never found a use for.
Ping times can be ok, in the 200ms range, but often go as high as 1,000ms on bad days.
Reliability I would say as decent. It depends a lot on if there is any interferance between you and the tower. If it is pretty much a clear shot, then you'll have great reliability, but if there is stuff in the way things can get iffy.
I'd say they are a workable alternative to the duopolies out there unless you absolutely demand very high speed and low latency.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually it's because the galaxy is almost entirely hydrogen, which emits blue light.
What they picked up was infra-red light. By shining that through a prism, you get the elements the galaxy is composed of. From the elements you can get the original color (all elements radiate a very specific set of frequencies that act like a fingerprint). Compare the original color to the observed color, which has shifted so far it has gone from up near violet down into the infra-red, and you get distance and therefore age.
If we are able to find anything older than these we'll probably have to start looking at sub-infrared radiation. I don't know how you get a prism to split radio waves, though.
Elements emit light at characteristic colors - frequencies of light.
To clarify so the GP doesn't think copper emits some blurred haze of green, elements emit very specific wavelenths of light that can be easily differentiated when the light is separated via a prism.
You'll see bands of light of various strenghts, and very conspicuous black lines at frequencies where it does not emit any light. Because the light was emmitted at the exact same moment (by definition), the redshift is exactly the same for all frequencies. The pattern never changes even though the the light all shifts red.
From these patterns, we know exactly what distant stars are made of. Because we have all of these elements on Earth, we know exactly what color they start out as, and exactly what their pattern is.
So, to sum up, splitting the light with a prism gives us the pattern. The pattern is compared to known elements to give us the element(s) the star is made of. The element(s) gives us the original color, which we can use to compare against the observed light. The observed red-shift from the original color gives us the distance.
According to TFA, hydrogen re-ionization when most of the universe was still opaque, gassy hydrogen and was not burning in the form of stars, blocks almost all of the light from 400 million to 900 million years after the BB. The only reason these galaxies were visible is because they believe they had extremely efficient hydrogen ionization, which is also why they were so blue. Before 400 million years post BB you have stars and galaxies only just forming, so I don't think there would be much in the way of light at all to be seen.
Also remember that the Big Bang is not an explosion in space, it's an explosion of space, so there might not be any visible light emmitted at all from the very beginning.
I believe the only reason they can see these galaxies is because they were blue to begin with.
They are using Hubble's infra-red telescope to see them, so that should tell you how far they have shifted. Obviously the pretty picture has been adjusted back to the original color. If you'll notice, the older galaxies (from 600 mil years post Big Bang) are a darker blue than the younger (700 mil years post BB).
The next ones they find will probably have to be pushing violet.
Google is already in the ebook business, teaming up with Sony to produce their public domain books in ePub format - which happens to be an open standard that is quickly becoming the most popular format outside of Amazon's proprietary format for the Kindle.
ASCII isn't that great for ebooks. You need a format that will get you closer to the functionality of a book, with things like TOC that links to sections of the book, page jumping within the book, etc.
Also having a few standard publishing formats and the ability to use images is a big need.
That's why I like ePub, it's based on an open standard and while it has optional DRM, it isn't controlled by any one company the way Kindle's DRM is. Project Gutenberg does ePub, even, and all of Google's PD books are available in ePub via the Sony store for free.
You could almost think of ePub as a super-advanced ASCII for books.
I wonder how that would work out in court. They would obviously sue in the US, since they'd have no case in Australia, and of course they wouldn't sue for a single book, but if you download a copy of a book in Australia yet actually recieve it in America, have you broken American copyright law?
Tricky tricky.
Again, I'd prefer an open standard with no DRM. But Kindle is probably the best we're going to get.
ePub, it's an open standard with optional DRM (it's up to the publisher), but even the DRM is sane and not all that restrictive. Sony uses it now exclusively, and B&N will sell it to you as an option (they have their own proprietary format similar to Kindle's as well). Plus there are a dozen more online retailers who sell ePub, and Project Gutenberg has converted everything to ePub.
I really hope it grows quickly enough to stomp out the Kindle's proprietary bull, but Amazon is a giant in this young business, so who knows.
That's why I never ever recommend the Kindle. They have far too much control over your legitimately purchased books, and you can never move them as far as I know.
That's why I like ePub, which is gaining ground fast. And it is much easier for publishers to use Adobe's tools for ePub books than the Kindle, so a lot of them are publishing in ePub, and then converting to Kindle.
Yes it has DRM, but it treats e-books as books and is only really there to try to make an ebook about as hard to copy as a normal book. It has provisions built in for lending and sharing and such. It even lets libraries in on the act, it's great, the most sensible format I've come accross so far.
Plus Adobe has a free reader for your PC if you really want to read the books that way.
It's not an LCD technically or figuratively, or any other way you could mean it. Liquid Chrystal Displays require Liquid Chrystals, e-ink has none. That makes a big difference because LCDs require light to pass through them to illuminate them, where e-ink interchanges dots of pigment, which reflect light - no backlight required.
That is what gives e-ink a contrast almost identical to the printed word, using nothing but reflected light.
Most TFT LCDs in portable devices and computer monitors do need a continuous refresh. You're thinking of LCDs in calculators and crap, which don't. LCD refresh is normally around 60hz.
The bigger problem is the flourescent light in most LCDs though, because that certainly does cause eyestrain. Haven't you ever had to go through an office ergonomics whatchamajigger? They tell you to look at your monitor no more than 10 minutes at a time to reduce eye strain. Looking at an LCD for too long without breaks causes headaches. It's no bueno.
So much for reading a book, eh?
This Blio e-reader isn't taking on the Kindle, it's taking on Adobe Digital Editions. The Blio is targeting an entirely different market, namely people who have not yet known the joy of a good ebook reader, or for some reason don't like them.
God, you must have the worst case of ADD in history. Do you turn pages in a book and have enough time to think maybe your arm is broken because it took so long? Because that's about how long it takes, a normal page turn.
Even the old ones (I have a prs-500) only take a half second to turn the page, unless you are doing something funky like custom fonts and stuff like that. If yours was taking longer than that then you were probably using an oddly formatted book, or perhaps a pdf and the particular model you were using wasn't so great at them. The new ones I know are faster, I've seen them. In any case I've read a half dozen books on mine and never thought it was outrageously slow. Slower than an LCD, yes, but it's not an LCD, and it looks a hundred times better for print than an LCD.
For heaven's sake it's made to replace a book, you're not supposed to be spending much time on the book selection page, or digging around in the options, you're supposed to be reading a friggin book!
Dumbass.
I have a friend who briefly sold Kirby vaccuumes. From what I hear their best customers end up being their own salesmen sometimes, and judging from him.... he seemed so sold you almost thought he would end up buying one if he stayed with it.
To be fair, Kirby's are bitchin vacuums. If you've never owned one, you're missing out. They last practically forever too. My parents had one that they got used and kept it for about 10 years before the hose finally wore out. They then bought another used Kirby and have been using it for the past 5 or 6 years.
I just wish they weren't so expensive, I have a cheapo $60 vacuum and man does it suck, and not in the good way. I think when it finally dies I'm going to get a Kirby. They are similar in quality to an Orreck, but Orreck takes the path of making the vacuum as light as possible, while Kirbies just throw in power-assist and keep the things monstrous. That makes them solid and very durable.
Am I the only one that noticed that all they did for this "study" was ask twins if they both had G-spots? I mean, seriously?
This wasn't "research", this was a survey. Given the fact that finding the G-spot is largely dependant on your partner, two twins could easily have different experiences.
What they should have done is if one twin reported having a G-spot and the other did not, then test both women in the same spot (the area the first twin reported the g-spot to be located). If they are both stimulated the same, boom, you've found your g-spot. If only the twin who reported the g-spot showed increased stimulation, then you know it's all psychological.
You could then compare the results to known stimulators, like the clitoris, and see if the g-spot is really any better.
It's called the Meisner effect, it's well documented. Super-conductor + high magnetism = floaty floaty. The superconducter literally repels the magnetism. It is this property that mag-lev trains rely on to move along the track with almost zero friction.
They said the unobtanium was a superconductor, and the "vortex" was also fairly obviously an area with a shifting, extremely powerful magnetic field. Unobtainium + Vortex = floaty mountains.
As I recall most of the arrows did not penetrate. They were also more like small spears shot from an ancient Roman scorpion war machine, given the size and strength of the Navi relative to the humans. Even so, a 50cal machine gun should have penetrated much better than the arrows.
It works the other way around too, and that area was not a good source of unobtainium in the ground, but it did have an unusually high magnetism (the "vortex"). So, what unobtainium was in the area could concievably have ripped out of the ground if the magnetism was high enough.
As for the GP asking why they would not have mined the floating rocks, good god man, just think about how difficult a flying mining operation would be!
No, the little blue light thingy was a magnet. Unobtanium was a superconductor. Magnet + superconductor = floaty, it's known as the Meisner effect.
Though they didn't say so, the "vortex" was pretty obviously an area where the magnetic field was incredibly high. You can infer this from the instruments going haywire and the rock formations that look like magnetic lines of force. It was like a super magnet.
In other words, unobtainium + vortex = floaty mountains. Elsewhere the magnetism simply wasn't strong enough to lift the unobtanium very high, certainly not enough to cause it to rip out of the earth.
Your missing a little background information, and that is the "unobtainium" was a superconductor at ambient temperature. Also, it should have been plain that the "vortex" where the floating mountains were was an area of abnormaly high magnetism, given the way it screwed up the instruments.
Super-conductor + high magnetism = Meisner effect, aka "floaty mountains". The rest of the planet was at slightly lower magnetism than the earth, so it would be a little easier to trap the unobtainium in the ground in areas that did not have the abnormal magnetism.
Perfectly scientific basis for the floaty mountains as long as you accept the basic premises - i.e. a naturally occuring superconducter at room temperature and an area of a planet with extreme, fairly localized, magnetism.
I found it odd that the invaders found it necessary to go straight down when mining, instead of mining at an angle, as though strip mining was the only option. Given the technology they had, there probably was not much of a reason they couldn't have worked around the Navi's requirements and still gotten to the ore.
Odds are that the house you are in RIGHT NOW was taken by a cascade of force, torture, and broken promises from a native peoples that, largely, welcomed your forefathers with open arms.
That's completely false. First off, only a portion of the native population were friendly, the rest scalped white people whenever they could find them, and hung the scalps from their belts as trophies. There were a few friendly native nations, but a great many were hostile.
Second, the natives themselves were constantly at war with each other, taking land and property by a "cascade of force, torture, and broken promises". The Europeans were simply a new player in the game, and they won. Yes, dirty deals were made by unscrupulous Europeans, but at the same time the native population never claimed any land. In their minds it was they who were scamming the newcomers. "You want to pay us to use land that we don't own? SURE! Sounds wonderful!". They only really lost out because the Europeans DID claim land, and vigorously defended it.
This idea that the native American population was kindhearted and gentle and severely wronged by the European invaders is foolish and not based in reality.
Third, I don't know a whole lot of people who live in houses over 100 years old, and the native americans never claimed ownership of any land. So who, exactly, is living in a house that was taken by "a cascade of force, torture, and broken promises from a native peoples that, largely, welcomed your forefathers with open arms"?
You are living in a fantasy land. The fact is, the newcomers played the same game the native's were playing, the newcomers were just better equiped, and so they won. In fact, I personally think that, while it is a nice gesture to try to allow natives to live as they once did by giving them their own land to do with as they will (aka reservations), in practice it does more harm than good. Better to just intigrate.
There is nothing for a modern American to feel guilty for, and in fact any guilt at all is based on a lack of understanding of history.
That's the firewall doing all the security in a NAT device. NAT itself facilitates connections between private and public addresses, by definition it makes the private addresses more accessible to the public. That's kinda the opposite of improving security, is it not? But we do it because it makes expansion cheaper, and actualy does provide a single gateway from which we can protect the private addresses.
That should not be confused with NAT providing security, it doesn't do anything of the kind.
Sure it does, they're not reachable from the Internet. How is that not helpful?
Actually, NAT is what makes it possible for a private address to interface with a public address and vice versa. They certainly are reachable from the Internet with NAT, that's the whole point of NAT.
You're confusing NAT with the built-in firewall that almost all NAT routers have, which hides the private addresses from the public. It is included because it is cheap to do a simple firewall, and the NAT device is a sensible place to put it as it is a single point of entry.
If you want to test this out, throw your privately-addressed computer on your router's DMZ (which is not under the protection of the internal firewall), and then record how many random hits from the internet you get. If what you say about NAT is true, you'll get none. I guarantee you will get a boatload.
A lot, as the IPv6 spec is not equivalent to the IPv4 spec, it just has a lot more addresses.
I have Clear, and for the price in my area it can't be beat. My area pretty much sucks for price and performance though.
In my area you can get upwards of 2mbps, which is obviously not much, but it has the benefit of being portable within the city - a benefit I have never found a use for.
Ping times can be ok, in the 200ms range, but often go as high as 1,000ms on bad days.
Reliability I would say as decent. It depends a lot on if there is any interferance between you and the tower. If it is pretty much a clear shot, then you'll have great reliability, but if there is stuff in the way things can get iffy.
I'd say they are a workable alternative to the duopolies out there unless you absolutely demand very high speed and low latency.