Yeah as of just a few months ago - prior to that it was "faster than 128k". And in a few more years it probably be changed again to "faster than 20 M." You see what happens when words lose their meaning? You create arbitrary definitions that can be altered to whatever the politicians desire. ("Freedom is badspeak. Obedience is doubleplusgood.") Anyway the FCC can go fuck themselves - they allow the most hideous violence on TV, and yet when Miss Jackson's nipple appears for half-a-second they have a royal fit like Puritan nutjobs.
Their *opinion* means nothing to me because that's all it is: opinion. I will stick with the true, engineering definition of broadband - i.e. anything significantly wider than a 4 kilohertz phone line. Therefore: I consider my 1 Mbps line broadband since it is several hundred kHz wide. I can access any part of the net I wish, including video streaming sites (not possible with narrowband dialup). Likewise I consider the 1.5 Mbit/s satellite as broadband.
IMHO satellite's main flaw is not its speed (which is 30+ times faster than dialup) but its cost. Same with wireless internet. And that is what limits people's choices to the CATV or Telco duopoly.
Uh oh..... here comes the Author's Guild. They are almost as bad as RIAA (except AG doesn't send extortion letters to private citizens). Anyway I think this is a great idea. I want to READ a book not own it, unless it's something exceptionally good (like Asimov's Best Science Fiction of ____ anthologies). So free borrowing via a Sony or Nook device is a great plan.
Pretty soon we'll be able to eliminate the brick-and-mortar library completely, the same way we've almost completely eliminated brick-and-mortar video rental stores.
Right. Way to imply the other poster is a liar. Because the US government has never abused its power, right?
I suppose you think the arrest of Japanese-Americans (and taking of their homes and property by the government) during the 1940s is just pure fiction. Or that the lynching of blacks by the predecessor to the FBI in the 1920s and 30s (including documented photos of these acts) is just fake CGI. The US Government has never, ever, never mistreated its citizens.
Continue to leave in your fantasy, because it isn't real. The US Government abuses innocents all the time - like the Baptist Preacher that Homeland Security drug out of his car (in southern Arizona) and beat until he was bleeding all over the sidewalk. Or that US Congressman who grabbed and half-nelsoned a college kid with a camera.
This shit happens all the time, and the fact you've never seen even one youtube video documenting these events shows you have your head stuck in the sand.
Okay well if you don't want to listen to C64 Guy, listen to Thomas Jefferson instead. I dare you to call his idea "nonsense". He had an estimated IQ of 160 (the typical college grad is only 109):
"If nature [aka Natural Law] has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself. But the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
"Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine... That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - written circa 1790 during the Age of Enlightenment (aka Reason)
Now explain to us why you think this Genius was wrong.
Okay well if you don't want to listen to C64 Guy, listen to Thomas Jefferson instead. I dare you to call his idea "nonsense". He had an estimated IQ of 160, which makes you like an idiot in comparison:
"If nature [aka Natural Law] has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself. But the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
"Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine... That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
- written circa 1790 during the Age of Enlightenment (aka Reason)
I wouldn't mind having some sort of plan that only charges by the minute.
VirginMobile. There's no monthly fee and you pay 20 cents per minute. (Just like a calling card.) The only "catch" is they expect you to add 5 dollars credit each month to your calling card... I mean phone... but that's no big deal.
It's odd you had credit card problems. I've never had any, except once, and Virgin gave me three free months as an apology. They have generous customer service that like to give-away free stuff (or credits). My voicemail works perfectly too.
They're still pretty reasonable these days with $20 per three months basic connection and $0.20 per minute used,
That's the same plan C64love was discussing. You don't pay a $20 fee. You buy $20 credit towards your phone, which is gradually used up by 20 cent minutes. Just like a calling card.
Put another way: $20 buys you 100 minutes that never expire. (As opposed to ATT's basic plan which charges $10 monthly fee and gives you no minutes.) Virgin's actual monthly fee is zero.
The value of the money didn't change, the purchasing power of the money changed.
Same difference. "Value" related to what you can get for your paper. If the paper buys less, then it has less value. - When Germany in the 1920s started running their printing presses like mad, in order to repay their WW1 reparations to the allied power, the paper devalued. Where 0.1 paper mark used to buy bread, now you needed a wheelbarrow of marks. Paper. Devalues due to excessive supply of said paper.
Something C64love forgot was the value of gold. An ounce of gold in the 1920s would buy two suits. An ounce of gold in 2010 would also buy two suits. The gold held its value; the paper dollar did not.
I'm sure C64love knows all about it. After all, Commodore owned the 6510. They sold them for dirt cheap (about 25 dollars), which eventually landed the 6510 and its variants in almost every major computer and console of the 70s, 80s, and 90s:
- Atari VCS/2600 (1977) - Apple I and II (1977) - Commodore PET (1977) - Atari 400/800 computers (1979) - and later the 5200 console - VIC-20 (1980) - BBC Micro (?) - Spectrum (?) - Commodore 64 (1982)
- Nintendo ES (1983) - Atari 7800 console (1984) - Apple IIgs (1986) - Super Nintendo (1990)
The 6510 and its successors were Commodore's biggest success.
It isn't working. Amendment __: Strike the clause "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". Replace with "To enrich the sciences, arts, and culture of the People, by securing for fourteen years* to Authors and Inventors the temporary Privilege of monopoly to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself. But the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
"Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine...
"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - Jefferson
He's likely sick of the anti-republican anti-libertarian hatred coming out of the Democrats and their people in the Congress/White House. Like - "Pro-small government supporters are kooks." or "Watch an unbiased channel like NBC not FOX." or "Everyone in the teaparty is racist." or ""If you oppose Obama's policies it's because you hate black people. You must be silenced."
You make a good point re: newspapers being easy to scan but there's something you forgot:
You can listen to radio or TV or podcasts while doing other things, like your engineering job or driving to work or cooking your dinner, so the audio/video news formats take 0 additional time to absorb.
People think you're joking but here's what wikipedia says:
"There is also a project synchronized with WebKit (sponsored by Pleyo) called Origyn Web Browser, which provides a meta-port to an abstract platform with the aim of making porting to embedded or lightweight systems quicker and easier.[37] This port is used for embedded devices such as set-top boxes, PMP and it has been ported into AmigaOS 4.1 for PowerPC, AmigaOS 3.9 for Classic 68000 machines, AROS and MorphOS."
The dollars and euros are already on the verge of being virtual. Banks, corporations, and individuals rarely trade paper anymore; it's all done electronically as computer data. Even the ~1500 billion bailouts passed last year were done virtually - the Central Bank just appended a couple zeros to GMs, Bank of America's, and other private accounts. In effect they created money out of thin air.
BTW the Federal Reserve is not part of the government, just as Federal Express is not part of the government. The name is designed to deceive you but the Fed is still a private bank. It's a private corporate monopoly.
And finally, if you want to take money out of the hands of government to manipulate, inflate, or devalue, all you need to do is switch back to using precious metals - gold, silver, platinum. Governments and/or private central banks can not make metals out of thing air, thus they can not devalue your personal savings.
Lying is not. They manipulated the data to make it do what they wanted it to do. A college student caught doing that would be placed on academic probation. Or possibly kicked out if the offense was severe.
Has anyone been asked to present a post-Cold War case for ever having one of these nuclear subs?
In case Britain, Spain, Germany, or Japan try to invade the US. It's happened several times in our past, and could certainly happen again. Subs would be useful in such a case to silently sneak-up and sink the enemy with torpedoes or tomahawk missiles.
BTW a future EU versus US war would be interesting. Europe could effectively cut-off America from its mideast oil supply and we'd no longer be able to fight. Of course we could arrange a strategic retreat and simply use the ocean + subs as a natural moat to protect us. A stalemate.
That's why I think Geo. Washington was correct when he said it was safer not to get involved in European family squabbles. Best to be neural and not piss anybody off, because we really aren't that strong of country compared to a unified Europe.
If you've never heard of the Middle Ages warming period (followed by the "little ice age" from 1300 to 1850), then you must be living in a cave. It's certainly been talked about often enough on the fucking TV (histroy channel, discovery, and PBS). And yes there was another global wraming period from 3000-2000 BC - scientists have confirmed it.
If these warming and cooling periods happened without man's intervention, by natural means, then it could certainly happen again.
The government is supposed to provide what people NEED as a minimum, not waste resources on 8-lane wide driveways (real or virtual).
Or television
Television only uses 1.5% of the usable spectrum. - Television has "squatters rights" (prior claim) that dates back to the 1940s. - Television has already donated almost half of its spectrum (channels 52-83 plus 35 plus 2-6) for the expansion of the wireless cellular network. - And finally, television benefits the poor and middle class because it provides entertainment, news, and tornado/weather warnings for FREE instead of locking it up behind a ~$100 a month cellular paywall.
The death of free TV will be considered, by our children, to be as stupid as when we let passenger rail all-but-die off. They'll be saying, "Why are we paying $1000-2000/year to watch inferior quality cellular video of PBS News or NBC Sports or Star Trek The Next Next Generation, when it used to be free and in high definition."
Second, you have to realize that the reported "average" speeds in the US are skewed positively by the availability of 50-100Mbit connections
It's also skewed negatively by dialup users at just 0.05 Mbit. I know because if you dig through the speedtest.net data, you'll find me in there. I was testing the speed of my 50k connection to see if the modem was reporting accurately. It's also skewed by people with slow DSL or slow Cable, like my own 0.7 Mbit connection.
The reality is that these plus and minus effects cancel each other, and the US average ends up being accurate..... AND about 0.5 Mbit/s faster than the EU average. We are keeping pace with our European cousins.
On another note, Cable/Broadcast TV looks like crap. Pixelates on high screen changes because of the low bitrate.
Actually broadcast tv looks great. They have enough intelligence to only squeeze 2 HD programs per channel, whereas Comcast and other cable companies try to squeeze 5 HD programs per channel. Hence the poor quality and yet another reason to prefer Free TV rather than pay tv.
we should expect no less than full BR quality
...which is 25 Mbit/s average for Bluray (or just 15 Mbit/s for HD-DVD). We already have 25 Mbit/s via Cable in the Seattle area, and FiOS in places like Philadelphia.
15% is the people who have nothing but free tv. If you include all over-the-air users, such as people that use antennas in case the cable fails, then it jumps to 30%.
4.6 billion cell phone contracts as of 2009. That statistic sounds as invalid as the claim by the NFL that 4 billion people watch the superbowl (unless there are people next to their wildfires trying to catch the game). Let's see: EU has about 1/2 billion citizens and US has 1/3 billion while China has 1 billion. Let's assume half those citizens own a cellphone (which is probably optimistic) to give us 1.8/2 == 0.9 billion contracts.
Now where do you suppose those other 3.7 billion cellphone users reside?
>>>in 1993-94 you could buy a Commodore Amiga 4000 brand new
What part of "1995" did you not understand??? Commodore was dead. Amiga was a corpse that was no longer in production. Atari was also dead. Even Apple was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
I was in college at the time and the only computer I was allowed to use was an IBM PC. ("If you buy a Mac you won't be able to run the required programs, so the college of engineering recommends avoiding it.")
then why do you think climate science is any different?
Because climate science is more akin to the psychological sciences. Mostly conjecture, due to its still-primitive nature, and the near-impossibility of arranging controlled experiments (we don't have duplicate earths). Their disciplines barely rise above the level of primitive Greek physics (you throw a ball in the air, it will probably fall back down, but we have no idea know how fast it will be moving).
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah as of just a few months ago - prior to that it was "faster than 128k". And in a few more years it probably be changed again to "faster than 20 M." You see what happens when words lose their meaning? You create arbitrary definitions that can be altered to whatever the politicians desire. ("Freedom is badspeak. Obedience is doubleplusgood.") Anyway the FCC can go fuck themselves - they allow the most hideous violence on TV, and yet when Miss Jackson's nipple appears for half-a-second they have a royal fit like Puritan nutjobs.
Their *opinion* means nothing to me because that's all it is: opinion. I will stick with the true, engineering definition of broadband - i.e. anything significantly wider than a 4 kilohertz phone line. Therefore: I consider my 1 Mbps line broadband since it is several hundred kHz wide. I can access any part of the net I wish, including video streaming sites (not possible with narrowband dialup). Likewise I consider the 1.5 Mbit/s satellite as broadband.
IMHO satellite's main flaw is not its speed (which is 30+ times faster than dialup) but its cost. Same with wireless internet. And that is what limits people's choices to the CATV or Telco duopoly.
Uh oh..... here comes the Author's Guild. They are almost as bad as RIAA (except AG doesn't send extortion letters to private citizens). Anyway I think this is a great idea. I want to READ a book not own it, unless it's something exceptionally good (like Asimov's Best Science Fiction of ____ anthologies). So free borrowing via a Sony or Nook device is a great plan.
Pretty soon we'll be able to eliminate the brick-and-mortar library completely, the same way we've almost completely eliminated brick-and-mortar video rental stores.
Right. Way to imply the other poster is a liar. Because the US government has never abused its power, right?
I suppose you think the arrest of Japanese-Americans (and taking of their homes and property by the government) during the 1940s is just pure fiction. Or that the lynching of blacks by the predecessor to the FBI in the 1920s and 30s (including documented photos of these acts) is just fake CGI. The US Government has never, ever, never mistreated its citizens.
Continue to leave in your fantasy, because it isn't real. The US Government abuses innocents all the time - like the Baptist Preacher that Homeland Security drug out of his car (in southern Arizona) and beat until he was bleeding all over the sidewalk. Or that US Congressman who grabbed and half-nelsoned a college kid with a camera.
This shit happens all the time, and the fact you've never seen even one youtube video documenting these events shows you have your head stuck in the sand.
...Natural Law is nonsense...
Okay well if you don't want to listen to C64 Guy, listen to Thomas Jefferson instead. I dare you to call his idea "nonsense". He had an estimated IQ of 160 (the typical college grad is only 109):
"If nature [aka Natural Law] has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself. But the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
"Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine... That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - written circa 1790 during the Age of Enlightenment (aka Reason)
Now explain to us why you think this Genius was wrong.
I'm used to your posting complete nonsense
Okay well if you don't want to listen to C64 Guy, listen to Thomas Jefferson instead. I dare you to call his idea "nonsense". He had an estimated IQ of 160, which makes you like an idiot in comparison:
"If nature [aka Natural Law] has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself. But the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
"Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine... That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
- written circa 1790 during the Age of Enlightenment (aka Reason)
I wouldn't mind having some sort of plan that only charges by the minute.
VirginMobile. There's no monthly fee and you pay 20 cents per minute. (Just like a calling card.) The only "catch" is they expect you to add 5 dollars credit each month to your calling card... I mean phone... but that's no big deal.
It's odd you had credit card problems. I've never had any, except once, and Virgin gave me three free months as an apology. They have generous customer service that like to give-away free stuff (or credits). My voicemail works perfectly too.
They're still pretty reasonable these days with $20 per three months basic connection and $0.20 per minute used,
That's the same plan C64love was discussing. You don't pay a $20 fee. You buy $20 credit towards your phone, which is gradually used up by 20 cent minutes. Just like a calling card.
Put another way: $20 buys you 100 minutes that never expire. (As opposed to ATT's basic plan which charges $10 monthly fee and gives you no minutes.) Virgin's actual monthly fee is zero.
The value of the money didn't change, the purchasing power of the money changed.
Same difference. "Value" related to what you can get for your paper. If the paper buys less, then it has less value. - When Germany in the 1920s started running their printing presses like mad, in order to repay their WW1 reparations to the allied power, the paper devalued. Where 0.1 paper mark used to buy bread, now you needed a wheelbarrow of marks. Paper. Devalues due to excessive supply of said paper.
Something C64love forgot was the value of gold. An ounce of gold in the 1920s would buy two suits. An ounce of gold in 2010 would also buy two suits. The gold held its value; the paper dollar did not.
I'm sure C64love knows all about it. After all, Commodore owned the 6510. They sold them for dirt cheap (about 25 dollars), which eventually landed the 6510 and its variants in almost every major computer and console of the 70s, 80s, and 90s:
- Atari VCS/2600 (1977)
- Apple I and II (1977)
- Commodore PET (1977)
- Atari 400/800 computers (1979) - and later the 5200 console
- VIC-20 (1980)
- BBC Micro (?)
- Spectrum (?)
- Commodore 64 (1982)
- Nintendo ES (1983)
- Atari 7800 console (1984)
- Apple IIgs (1986)
- Super Nintendo (1990)
The 6510 and its successors were Commodore's biggest success.
It isn't working. Amendment __: Strike the clause "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;". Replace with "To enrich the sciences, arts, and culture of the People, by securing for fourteen years* to Authors and Inventors the temporary Privilege of monopoly to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself. But the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
"Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine...
"That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property." - Jefferson
Her gigantic nipples poked me in the eye!
He's likely sick of the anti-republican anti-libertarian hatred coming out of the Democrats and their people in the Congress/White House. Like - "Pro-small government supporters are kooks." or "Watch an unbiased channel like NBC not FOX." or "Everyone in the teaparty is racist." or ""If you oppose Obama's policies it's because you hate black people. You must be silenced."
See this facebook page for an example. Just read the lead stories
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/pages/Republicans-Are-Idiots-And-Arguing-With-Them-Is-A-Waste-Of-Time/114270361928171?ref=ts
You make a good point re: newspapers being easy to scan but there's something you forgot:
You can listen to radio or TV or podcasts while doing other things, like your engineering job or driving to work or cooking your dinner, so the audio/video news formats take 0 additional time to absorb.
People think you're joking but here's what wikipedia says:
"There is also a project synchronized with WebKit (sponsored by Pleyo) called Origyn Web Browser, which provides a meta-port to an abstract platform with the aim of making porting to embedded or lightweight systems quicker and easier.[37] This port is used for embedded devices such as set-top boxes, PMP and it has been ported into AmigaOS 4.1 for PowerPC, AmigaOS 3.9 for Classic 68000 machines, AROS and MorphOS."
The dollars and euros are already on the verge of being virtual. Banks, corporations, and individuals rarely trade paper anymore; it's all done electronically as computer data. Even the ~1500 billion bailouts passed last year were done virtually - the Central Bank just appended a couple zeros to GMs, Bank of America's, and other private accounts. In effect they created money out of thin air.
BTW the Federal Reserve is not part of the government, just as Federal Express is not part of the government. The name is designed to deceive you but the Fed is still a private bank. It's a private corporate monopoly.
And finally, if you want to take money out of the hands of government to manipulate, inflate, or devalue, all you need to do is switch back to using precious metals - gold, silver, platinum. Governments and/or private central banks can not make metals out of thing air, thus they can not devalue your personal savings.
The Philadelphia River froze over. No need for error bars when you can see the "mini ice age" with your own eyes.
Failure's okay.
Lying is not. They manipulated the data to make it do what they wanted it to do. A college student caught doing that would be placed on academic probation. Or possibly kicked out if the offense was severe.
Has anyone been asked to present a post-Cold War case for ever having one of these nuclear subs?
In case Britain, Spain, Germany, or Japan try to invade the US. It's happened several times in our past, and could certainly happen again. Subs would be useful in such a case to silently sneak-up and sink the enemy with torpedoes or tomahawk missiles.
BTW a future EU versus US war would be interesting. Europe could effectively cut-off America from its mideast oil supply and we'd no longer be able to fight. Of course we could arrange a strategic retreat and simply use the ocean + subs as a natural moat to protect us. A stalemate.
That's why I think Geo. Washington was correct when he said it was safer not to get involved in European family squabbles. Best to be neural and not piss anybody off, because we really aren't that strong of country compared to a unified Europe.
I'm pretty sure from your history that you're not
If you've never heard of the Middle Ages warming period (followed by the "little ice age" from 1300 to 1850), then you must be living in a cave. It's certainly been talked about often enough on the fucking TV (histroy channel, discovery, and PBS). And yes there was another global wraming period from 3000-2000 BC - scientists have confirmed it.
If these warming and cooling periods happened without man's intervention, by natural means, then it could certainly happen again.
The government is supposed to provide what people NEED as a minimum, not waste resources on 8-lane wide driveways (real or virtual).
Or television
Television only uses 1.5% of the usable spectrum. - Television has "squatters rights" (prior claim) that dates back to the 1940s. - Television has already donated almost half of its spectrum (channels 52-83 plus 35 plus 2-6) for the expansion of the wireless cellular network. - And finally, television benefits the poor and middle class because it provides entertainment, news, and tornado/weather warnings for FREE instead of locking it up behind a ~$100 a month cellular paywall.
The death of free TV will be considered, by our children, to be as stupid as when we let passenger rail all-but-die off. They'll be saying, "Why are we paying $1000-2000/year to watch inferior quality cellular video of PBS News or NBC Sports or Star Trek The Next Next Generation, when it used to be free and in high definition."
Second, you have to realize that the reported "average" speeds in the US are skewed positively by the availability of 50-100Mbit connections
It's also skewed negatively by dialup users at just 0.05 Mbit. I know because if you dig through the speedtest.net data, you'll find me in there. I was testing the speed of my 50k connection to see if the modem was reporting accurately. It's also skewed by people with slow DSL or slow Cable, like my own 0.7 Mbit connection.
The reality is that these plus and minus effects cancel each other, and the US average ends up being accurate..... AND about 0.5 Mbit/s faster than the EU average. We are keeping pace with our European cousins.
On another note, Cable/Broadcast TV looks like crap. Pixelates on high screen changes because of the low bitrate.
Actually broadcast tv looks great. They have enough intelligence to only squeeze 2 HD programs per channel, whereas Comcast and other cable companies try to squeeze 5 HD programs per channel. Hence the poor quality and yet another reason to prefer Free TV rather than pay tv.
we should expect no less than full BR quality
...which is 25 Mbit/s average for Bluray (or just 15 Mbit/s for HD-DVD). We already have 25 Mbit/s via Cable in the Seattle area, and FiOS in places like Philadelphia.
15% is the people who have nothing but free tv. If you include all over-the-air users, such as people that use antennas in case the cable fails, then it jumps to 30%.
4.6 billion cell phone contracts as of 2009. That statistic sounds as invalid as the claim by the NFL that 4 billion people watch the superbowl (unless there are people next to their wildfires trying to catch the game). Let's see: EU has about 1/2 billion citizens and US has 1/3 billion while China has 1 billion. Let's assume half those citizens own a cellphone (which is probably optimistic) to give us 1.8/2 == 0.9 billion contracts.
Now where do you suppose those other 3.7 billion cellphone users reside?
The wikipedia number is wrong.
>>>in 1993-94 you could buy a Commodore Amiga 4000 brand new
What part of "1995" did you not understand??? Commodore was dead. Amiga was a corpse that was no longer in production. Atari was also dead. Even Apple was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy.
I was in college at the time and the only computer I was allowed to use was an IBM PC. ("If you buy a Mac you won't be able to run the required programs, so the college of engineering recommends avoiding it.")
then why do you think climate science is any different?
Because climate science is more akin to the psychological sciences. Mostly conjecture, due to its still-primitive nature, and the near-impossibility of arranging controlled experiments (we don't have duplicate earths). Their disciplines barely rise above the level of primitive Greek physics (you throw a ball in the air, it will probably fall back down, but we have no idea know how fast it will be moving).