Geez, if people would only take some time to read the original article and take a look at the opencable specs for a few minutes, a lot of misinformation would be cleared up. An opencable set top box by itself can ONLY receive IN-THE-CLEAR content, such as provided by the broadcasters delivered over cable. The PCMCIA compatible cablecard (formerly known as POD) is required to 1) decrypt encrypted content and 2) access the two-way out-of-band data channels. The cablecard is provided by the cable operator. However, an addition component is needed. That is the Open Cable Application Platform (OCAP) layer (http://www.opencable.com/downloads/specs/OC-SP-OC AP1.0-I08-030808.pdf). This layer of software permits interoperable applications to run on any opencable platform with OCAP on any cable network, something that was not possible before the opencable and OCAP specifications. These specifications, which have industry support, will enable, amongst other things, cable set top boxes to be sold at retail rather than lease.
Um, excuse me, but, the Taliban was never declared to be a terrorist organization. How then, can he be declared to be a terrorist? Of course, in the present political climate, anything goes, even if it is not logically consistent. That said, rather than risk being as a terrorist under the so-called Patriot Act, he most likely opted for the easiest solution, EVEN IF HE IS NOT GUILTY OF WRONG DOING. Can you say Joe McCarthy?
wifi access at the FCC--what about the fine print?
on
FCC Goes WiFi
·
· Score: 1
Its nice that they are enabling WIFI for visitors. However, like many public policy decisions, there may be fine print buried in some other regulation, such as banning all computers and wireless devices from the FCC.
The cause of all this brouhaha with the legal system is because scientists are those folks who know more and more about less and less until they know everything about absolutely nothing.
Seriously, I think that there is a kind of disconnect between high priests of science and the layity leading to a distrust of what science can offer. How often are there reversals in scientific opinion, such as has happened with eating eggs or drinking moderate amounts of alcohol. Then there are other cases, such as with the use of macro doses of Vitamin C, where lots of folks swear by it and science is either silent or negative. Then there are the cases where science "catches up" to common wisdom and the response is that science once again proves the obvious. Yawn.
It would seem that the judiciary, as members of the scientific layity, are subject to the same opinions about science as many other commoners. They just have the power to do something about it, albeit it in an adverse manner.
So the question might be that in the effort to eliminate junk science, as referred to in the article, judges are promoting a different form of junk science!
Orwell's vision not happening? NOT!
on
Gates and Security
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
If anyone cares who doubts that we don't live in Orwellian times, listen to Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org), Wednesdays broadcast should surely convince you. You can get it at: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/2 5/1353213.
As someone working in cable industry on S/W specs for two-way digital cable as well as on industry standards in this area, movement away from existing technologies is extremely difficult. There are millions of legacy digital set-top boxes out there that have a rather restricted footprint of performance and memory. Any changes in technologies MUST be compatible with those legacies, even if it means dual carriage. Furthermore, the cable operators have invested billions in the existing headend equipment. Given the state of the economy, they don't have a lot of capital to work with to invest in new technologies to replace the old ones.
The existing transport for content on cable is MPEG-2. All those legacy boxes have MPEG-2 decoders. Thus, for several years, MPEG-2 will remain in place. However, new compression schemes are being examined. Perhaps when those set-top boxes start to include DOCSIS modems enabling wide bandwidthIP traffic, will things start to change. This, however, is also several years away.
Jim Hightower (http://www.jimhightower.com or http://www.webactive.com/hightower), wrote a book entitled, "If God had meant us to vote, he would have given us candidates".
If, as the DOJ prosecutor says, "a criminal is a criminal", then why is Poindexter allowed in the White House to lead the "Total Information Awareness" program. Going even further, the US was convicted by the World Court and the UN Security Council of crimes in Nicaragua in the '80's. Then there's the matter of Kissinger, but he hasn't been convicted. In any event, lets cut the hypocrisy.
The LINC computer (http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/ijs/epl/LINC.html) preceeded the PDP. We had one in a lab at the Northwestern School of Medicine. We used it for fourier analysis with output to a Calcomp plotter. Sixty four data points, took 5 minutes! Those little DEC tapes sure were churning! Also, used it to emulate a computer of average transients. fun machine to play with. 4K of memory with only 2K that could be used for program.. With creativity, one could do a lot with that machine!:)
DO NOT look directly at the meteor shower. This is very dangerous. To do so, you will risk becoming blind, turning into a giant walking vegetable and destroying your neighbors. Remember "Day of the Triffids".
required reading about compost
on
My Compost Bin And I
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
A poem by Walt Whitman, innocently entitled "This Compost" (http://www.riles.org/compost.htm), reveals all there is to know about compost. On the earth beneath our feet he asks where all the rotting corpses have gone and how such sweet things like blackberries and apples can grow "out of such corruptions". But read it for yourself and behold the awe and mystery of the grand design. When looked at it this way, each of us becomes fodder for something else!
We, in the US, live in a climate of fear that has been nurtured by our government and the media for a very long time. We have ignored many of the problems in nations throughout the world and focused on being the toughest MF'er on the block. As king of the heap, we have to protect our position. In order to do that we have to justify it to the American people by daily demonstrating the need for that protection--that everyone is out to get us. It becomes a catch-22 situation. The need for security and the means of ensuring that security creates an ever increasing need for more security. Of course, ultimately, our rights must suffer.
The original driver was the telecommunications act back in 1996. The purpose of reclaiming the analog broadcast spectrum was to be able to resell it in order to reduce (or pay off) the national debt. Originally, this would happen only if there was 85% conversion. The new bill by Tauzin and Dingell removes the 85% requirement. It would not only add a digital tuner for broadcast to TVs, but a QAM tuner for cable as well as requiring the carriage of broadcast signals over cable (8-VSB over MPEG, my how inefficient). I think the main reason for this bill is due to the lack of interoperable standards in the affected industries. However, remember, this bill is only a draft and not going to the floor of the house anytime soon. However, in spite of the rhetoric, the consumer will get screwed in the end.
I am one of the founders and the treasurer of one of these coops--Magnolia Road Internet Coop (http://www.magnoliaroad.net). We are in an area that is not served by cable or DSL. We have two T1 lines, with Frame Relay and ISDN for backup. We recently completed our trial period and have over 25 subscribers to start with a large waiting list. Due to the uneven terrain the wireless is distributed via several repeater sites.
As someone who developes specifications for hardware and software for the cable industry, there are several issues that are not immediately addressed on the web site, but perhaps are addressed after registering for their various groups and getting the download files. The first is that for cable, interactive set top boxes require that have reverse channels, require a hightly optimised OS that can handle perhaps a couple of hundred different types of interrupts. Additionally, for cable systems, conditional access is an absolute requirement. For retail boxes, this will come in the form of removable PCMCIA devices that are specific to the particular cable operator.
Slashdot Mirror
I visited the International Spy Museaum during Thanksgiving week. I was less than whelmed.
The review (and the book?) left out two important factors. Physical evolution: very evolved. Emotional evolutions: not much past crayfish.
Geez, if people would only take some time to read the original article and take a look at the opencable specs for a few minutes, a lot of misinformation would be cleared up. An opencable set top box by itself can ONLY receive IN-THE-CLEAR content, such as provided by the broadcasters delivered over cable. The PCMCIA compatible cablecard (formerly known as POD) is required to 1) decrypt encrypted content and 2) access the two-way out-of-band data channels. The cablecard is provided by the cable operator. However, an addition component is needed. That is the Open Cable Application Platform (OCAP) layer (http://www.opencable.com/downloads/specs/OC-SP-OC AP1.0-I08-030808.pdf).
This layer of software permits interoperable applications to run on any opencable platform with OCAP on any cable network, something that was not possible before the opencable and OCAP specifications. These specifications, which have industry support, will enable, amongst other things, cable set top boxes to be sold at retail rather than lease.
Um, excuse me, but, the Taliban was never declared to be a terrorist organization. How then, can he be declared to be a terrorist? Of course, in the present political climate, anything goes, even if it is not logically consistent. That said, rather than risk being as a terrorist under the so-called Patriot Act, he most likely opted for the easiest solution, EVEN IF HE IS NOT GUILTY OF WRONG DOING. Can you say Joe McCarthy?
Its nice that they are enabling WIFI for visitors. However, like many public policy decisions, there may be fine print buried in some other regulation, such as banning all computers and wireless devices from the FCC.
The cause of all this brouhaha with the legal system is because scientists are those folks who know more and more about less and less until they know everything about absolutely nothing.
Seriously, I think that there is a kind of disconnect between high priests of science and the layity leading to a distrust of what science can offer. How often are there reversals in scientific opinion, such as has happened with eating eggs or drinking moderate amounts of alcohol. Then there are other cases, such as with the use of macro doses of Vitamin C, where lots of folks swear by it and science is either silent or negative. Then there are the cases where science "catches up" to common wisdom and the response is that science once again proves the obvious. Yawn.
It would seem that the judiciary, as members of the scientific layity, are subject to the same opinions about science as many other commoners. They just have the power to do something about it, albeit it in an adverse manner.
So the question might be that in the effort to eliminate junk science, as referred to in the article, judges are promoting a different form of junk science!
If anyone cares who doubts that we don't live in Orwellian times, listen to Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org), Wednesdays broadcast should surely convince you. You can get it at: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/2 5/1353213.
As someone working in cable industry on S/W specs for two-way digital cable as well as on industry standards in this area, movement away from existing technologies is extremely difficult. There are millions of legacy digital set-top boxes out there that have a rather restricted footprint of performance and memory. Any changes in technologies MUST be compatible with those legacies, even if it means dual carriage. Furthermore, the cable operators have invested billions in the existing headend equipment. Given the state of the economy, they don't have a lot of capital to work with to invest in new technologies to replace the old ones.
The existing transport for content on cable is MPEG-2. All those legacy boxes have MPEG-2 decoders. Thus, for several years, MPEG-2 will remain in place. However, new compression schemes are being examined. Perhaps when those set-top boxes start to include DOCSIS modems enabling wide bandwidthIP traffic, will things start to change. This, however, is also several years away.
Jim Hightower (http://www.jimhightower.com or http://www.webactive.com/hightower), wrote a book entitled, "If God had meant us to vote, he would have given us candidates".
If, as the DOJ prosecutor says, "a criminal is a criminal", then why is Poindexter allowed in the White House to lead the "Total Information Awareness" program. Going even further, the US was convicted by the World Court and the UN Security Council of crimes in Nicaragua in the '80's. Then there's the matter of Kissinger, but he hasn't been convicted. In any event, lets cut the hypocrisy.
The LINC computer (http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/ijs/epl/LINC.html) preceeded the PDP. We had one in a lab at the Northwestern School of Medicine. We used it for fourier analysis with output to a Calcomp plotter. Sixty four data points, took 5 minutes! Those little DEC tapes sure were churning! Also, used it to emulate a computer of average transients. fun machine to play with. 4K of memory with only 2K that could be used for program.. With creativity, one could do a lot with that machine! :)
DO NOT look directly at the meteor shower. This is very dangerous. To do so, you will risk becoming blind, turning into a giant walking vegetable and destroying your neighbors. Remember "Day of the Triffids".
A poem by Walt Whitman, innocently entitled "This Compost" (http://www.riles.org/compost.htm), reveals all there is to know about compost. On the earth beneath our feet he asks where all the rotting corpses have gone and how such sweet things like blackberries and apples can grow "out of such corruptions". But read it for yourself and behold the awe and mystery of the grand design. When looked at it this way, each of us becomes fodder for something else!
We, in the US, live in a climate of fear that has been nurtured by our government and the media for a very long time. We have ignored many of the problems in nations throughout the world and focused on being the toughest MF'er on the block. As king of the heap, we have to protect our position. In order to do that we have to justify it to the American people by daily demonstrating the need for that protection--that everyone is out to get us. It becomes a catch-22 situation. The need for security and the means of ensuring that security creates an ever increasing need for more security. Of course, ultimately, our rights must suffer.
The original driver was the telecommunications act back in 1996. The purpose of reclaiming the analog broadcast spectrum was to be able to resell it in order to reduce (or pay off) the national debt. Originally, this would happen only if there was 85% conversion. The new bill by Tauzin and Dingell removes the 85% requirement. It would not only add a digital tuner for broadcast to TVs, but a QAM tuner for cable as well as requiring the carriage of broadcast signals over cable (8-VSB over MPEG, my how inefficient). I think the main reason for this bill is due to the lack of interoperable standards in the affected industries. However, remember, this bill is only a draft and not going to the floor of the house anytime soon. However, in spite of the rhetoric, the consumer will get screwed in the end.
I am one of the founders and the treasurer of one of these coops--Magnolia Road Internet Coop (http://www.magnoliaroad.net). We are in an area that is not served by cable or DSL. We have two T1 lines, with Frame Relay and ISDN for backup. We recently completed our trial period and have over 25 subscribers to start with a large waiting list. Due to the uneven terrain the wireless is distributed via several repeater sites.
As someone who developes specifications for hardware and software for the cable industry, there are several issues that are not immediately addressed on the web site, but perhaps are addressed after registering for their various groups and getting the download files. The first is that for cable, interactive set top boxes require that have reverse channels, require a hightly optimised OS that can handle perhaps a couple of hundred different types of interrupts. Additionally, for cable systems, conditional access is an absolute requirement. For retail boxes, this will come in the form of removable PCMCIA devices that are specific to the particular cable operator.
The original CEA (Consumer Electronics Assoc) press release can be found at: http://www.ce.org/Newsroom/Newsroom_recent_news.as p
The press release is about the worst web page I have ever seen. I wonder if the product will be any better.