I find your post very stimulating, and intend to respond. It is very rich and I'd like to give it the chance to affect my thinking rather than just reply from the hip. I'll dig in after work this evening.
Everybody wants to wrap themselves in the flag of the free market, and claim that their view is the definition of free market. Let me take a quick moment to define a few terms:
Free Market: Objective is to maximize the efficiency of allocation of resources by maximizing the ability of people to make rational, informed, free decisions on how to transact liquid wealth.
Laissez Faire: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by minimizing government involvement in corporate decision making (typically except those decisions regarding contracts, copyright, trademark, patents, and trade dress).
Libertarian: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by minimizing government involvement in all decision making (typically except those decisions regarding contracts, copyright, trademark, patents, and trade dress).
Capitalism: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by maximizing return on capital.
The proponents of each of the latter three beliefs above profess that their belief system is synonymous with the free market. However, since they are all explicitly maximizing or minimizing different things than what the free market maximizes, it is not by definition that they are synonymous. Hence their hypothesis of synonymity is subject to analysis and disproof -- even if you fully accept the primacy of the free market.
Putting aside the argument that 91% is not really a true monopoly (only 100% market share is a monopoly)
Yes, agreed. I meant in the more common and less technically accurate sense of monopoly/duopoly/n-opoly; a sufficiently narrow set of suppliers that direct competition in the market is not the regulating force, but rather the threat of being displaced. That threat, of course, hangs on customers being sufficiently dissatisfied that overcoming the barriers to entry is a good capital risk.
Yes, to the degree that a company is a monopoly, they do suffer the same failings that any central authority would have, and this is why a monopoly must eventually fall from its own weight. As soon as those incorrect decisions are made, they begin to lose market share until competition comes in to correct the situation.
That is true in a theoretical efficient free market. In the real market, are there any barriers to competition in this case? I would posit that there are -- primarily they are the need to put cables in the ground. That barrier is significant, and casts a significant shadow on the threat of competition being a regulating force.
So, there are few or no direct market competitors and new competitors have a significant barrier to entry. Will the actual market price be above, below, or the same as the free market price?
Owning stuff is nice, but to understand the goal we shouldn't ask Adam Smith, we should ask Abraham Maslow.
Maslow attempts to establish the definition of wealth. Wealth is the ability to satisfy wants, and Maslow supposes that the wants of all humans can be codified and prioritized. But I ask you, can you say with certainty that a devout Muslim in the Golan Heights has the same priorities on Maslow's chart as an agnostic kindergarten teacher and mother of three from Poughkeepsie?
A significant tenet of Adam Smith's hypothesis is that it is folly to assume that we can precisely codify human wants. Lacking that, the best we can do is create a system in which we maximize the opportunity for each individual to express his wants and seek their satisfaction.
Maslow's work is brilliant, informative, and extremely useful in many fields. It even has a very strong place in the study of economics. Whether it can be used as a foundation on which to build a system of economic law which maximizes the satisfaction of wants, however, is a very different question.
ACTA will include a section on Internet "enforcement procedures" after all.
Dear Imperial Overlords,
Are you familiar with the term "radicalize"?
Are you aware that the script kiddies of the world are extremely unskilled?
Do you really think you control, or can control, the Internet?
You are guests in our world. Try reading some cypherpunk. Me, I'm interested in other things, but keep this up, and an increasing number in our community will begin to get defensive and protect our community from you interlopers.
Just the facts, not trying to be a dick or anything.
I'm also not sure a return to the time when the company that runs the physical layer has no reason to upgrade to allow more bandwidth is in our best interest.
There is an incredibly simple market solution for this. Eliminate the advertising of "unlimited" when it really means "limited". If they simply sold tiered access, with full and simple disclosure, the money could flow to the higher tiers as the users increase their appetite for bits. Let the free market flow the cash to those who provision more bandwidth, and the profit motive will magically solve the rest.
OK, who are you going to believe: Harvard, Adam Smith, and a bunch of empirical evidence, or the oligopolists who have monopoly rents to defend? Competition never did anything good for anyone who was in charge of an existing monopoly. Competition may be one of the fundamental tenets of free market capitalism, and may be a principle requirement for maximization of both GDP and a society's ability to satisfy wants, but it simply does not guarantee those who have attained wealth and power that they will be able to continue their acquisition of it without trying very hard.
Ask yourself what is really important here: The principles of economics which are supposed to be the bedrock of our superpower status, or the rights of a few CEOs to do a poor job and charge whatever they want?
Except if it was so terrifying, why did she do everything but call the police, who have the powers to actually investigate things like this and would have probably figured out in about 5 minutes who sent the emails?
I had it happen to me once, for real threats though (at least they were really being made, not that they came to pass). He said when he was going to come over, which should have made it obvious to me that he didn't intend to follow through, but I was young and stupid. I didn't call the police. I just invited a couple friends over. I figured if he wanted to come get his ass beat it would be an entertaining evening all 'round, except for him.
Now, my reason is obviously not hers (and I'm a vastly different person now), but claiming to understand how a person who feels threatened will respond shows more hubris than awareness. Maybe she was embarrassed to tell the police she was scared, maybe she got laughed at by an authority figure when she was young. Or maybe she didn't want to waste their time with something so inconsequential, maybe she had an authority figure scold her for wasting their time.
Or maybe she's a dissocial opportunistic asshat. But you don't know that based exclusively on the fact that she did not call the police. Why don't abused women call the police?
>> If Richard Stallman wanted to help open source, he would resign from the FSF.
> RMS doesn't give a crap about open source. He advocates Free Software.
And I'd add, most of us don't give a crap about open source. Most of us (who have an opinion on software licensing, anyway) advocate Open Source (and/or Free Software), not open source. There is a big difference. Just being allowed to see the source code is not enough. Not grasping that distinction makes me skeptical of GP's grasp of legal space under discussion.
Or maybe conveniently located rentable lockers will start showing up at the theater, which you can pay to store all your potentially infringing devices.
Ooooo - I like that idea. Then, while you're in the theater, the duly authorized officials from the RIAA and MPAA can search your hard drive for stolen music and movies.:)
For customers, the message is clear: leave your laptop in the car.
I have a better answer: When they ask you to put your laptop in your car, ask for your money back and leave. Is it really worth being treated like a criminal to see that movie right now? Customer service matters. If the proprietor of some establishment is a dick, don't give him your money.
However, if you wanted to build a small UAV that could accurately provide location and elevation data, could navigate correctly, and had a proper flight control/autopilot system, there's no way around hard work and math.
What if you wanted something less? What if you wanted the least expensive thing that could contribute to the total mission? (with the real UAVs handling the important operations)
GPS navigation is very cool, but for a military UAV, any number of issues can arise that can cause a loss of GPS data.
What if you had 50 of them, and 49 lost their data?
Most COTS electronics cannot handle weather, vibration, or sudden acceleration well, and quality costs.
What if you make loss part of the plan?
Mistakes kill, and there are no shortcuts.
Mistakes with UAVs that are considered unreliable as a mission parameter do not kill, so there are lots of shortcuts.
If I'm putting together a real UAV, here's my standard stack:
What would be your standard stack if you were putting together a fake UAV? (one that flew around, took pictures, had a wonky autopilot, and crashed occasionally)
The system is enclosed in a carbon fiber case;
Yegads! Rip that thing off and toss it -- adds weight, and all it does is protect $100 worth of electronics. Just shrink-wrap the board and mount it with rubber bands.:)
Basically, what I'm saying is precision and reliability are not cheap.
Basically, what I'm saying is precision and reliability are not necessary for every mission, particularly if you have high redundancy and the missions are exploratory.
Aviation software is the most rigorously tested and verified software in the world
I worked with an aviation software engineer from Boeing for a while. He was freaky smart and a little scary. Don't use that software, use the Open Source stuff that crashes occasionally -- there's no people on these, and you leave the critical mission stuff to the real UAVs.
Anyway, hope that gives you a little glimpse into the world of someone who has done real UAV work.:)
Definitely very cool stuff. Here's my incinerator, which cost significantly less than a waste management facility (the savings was roughly enough to buy a waste management facility):
Anyway, hope that gives you a little glimpse into the world of someone who has done real minimalist engineering.:)
Also consider:
- Most influential rifle in modern history: AK
- Most influential armored vehicle in modern history: Sherman
- Most influential naval vessel in modern history: Liberty Ship
What do those all have in common? I would posit that it is that they are among the worst in their class, except for being cheap, disposable, and plentiful. The United States is awesome at the super-high-tech stuff, but I think we're even better at bodging.
Another way to look at it: Is the perfect the enemy of the good?
Looks like these Reaper drones are the real wave of the future, eh?
At $10.9m, I'd rather see them going cheaper, and deploying more. Having seen the advances in home-built drones at Maker Faire and on RCGroups and having done a little myself, that price is absolutely ludicrous. You need $10.9m aircraft to reduce the risk that the components (or humans, if manned) will be lost in combat or fall into enemy hands. But if you use cheap commodity components, you don't need it to survive.
I do think there is a role for Reapers -- send them in for advanced missions and when you need to shoot. But for getting a look at the bad guys without putting anyone in harm's way? A $2k tricked out R/C airplane will get you there.
Nice side bonus: If you have a lot more planes, you can give more soldiers stick time. Not that war is fun, but if you're going to be in a war, it's nice to have a productive diversion.
"The Daily Climate reports that President Obama and Congress are pushing to identify thousands of contaminated landfills and abandoned mines -- 'brownfields' that could be repurposed to house wind farms, solar arrays, and geothermal power plants. Using already disturbed lands would help avoid conflicts between renewable energy developers and environmental groups concerned about impacts to wildlife habitat. 'In the next decade there's going to be a lot of renewable energy built, and all that has to go somewhere,' said Jessica Goad, an energy and climate change policy fellow for The Wilderness Society.
That's all well and good for the ducks, but what about landowners who have invested good money and hosted dozens of elbow-rubbing parties over the years to develop a relationship with congresspeople and senators? How are they supposed to get the government to buy their $60 per acre swampland for $2500 per acre? Reusing land the government has already paid for severely depresses the corrupt real estate deal market, with nothing more to show for it than reduced public spending.
Won't somebody please think of the well-connected?!?
This is of course an implied criticism of former US president George W Bush and the neo-conservatives, who were often accused of trying to change the world in their image.
Hey, that editorial crack is completely unfair.
They were not trying to turn the world into a more back-biting, Machiavellian, toy for manipulation by megacorporation advertising and strong-arm back-door deals.
They were succeeding. "Trying" is for sissies.
Disclaimer: The above is a joke and is not intended to imply that I like the current course significantly better than the old one. New corruption pretends to sweep clean, but it's still corruption, and we still employ Halliburton and Blackwater.
If a 802.11-derived network was designed to provide the features of a modern cellular network, it will retain little in common with 802.11.
I can live with that.
But I'm guessing that is more to indicate a different problem; 802.11 is the standard, and ubiquity would be most rapidly served by adhering to the standard. Fair enough -- so 802.11 compatibility would be an objective. But if we could only solve the ubiquity problem with a new standard, wouldn't it be worth looking down that path?
It's not possible to avoid centralized coordination of all access points; otherwise, you'd just be switching between different Internet connections every hundred feet or so.
How centralized? As centralized as an ant or bee colony? Could we achieve that? How about smart nodes that know about their thousand closest neighbors and how to handle handoff? How about adaptive nodes that learn the patterns of probable handoff?
Suppose you toss in a server that you use as a proxy. It knows how to chunk large transmissions and parcel them out to your volatile IP address, so you only have to get a few hundred bytes from each node you pass.
It's already possible to have low-powered base stations that are connected to a residential Internet connection, though. AT&T offers such a device.
An interesting concept. How is the market penetration? Does it help solve the bandwidth crunch Genachowski mentions? Does it do better or worse at that than a decentralized solution would?
Good luck solving soft handoff for a bus traveling at 45 km/h or 30 mph.
You have a good point.
So then, how would you solve it? Forget luck -- we're Slashdotters, a fair bit smarter than the average bear -- how would you do it?
Three quick ideas: Caltrain, smart roads, and start with what you can solve.
Caltrain (like many public transit systems) has wifi on board (I think -- one of the ones around here does -- I walk to work). So for mass transit, there is a mobile solution out there that is already working.
The smart roads side I am not as sure on, but the rough idea is that you can predict with some degree of certainty where each device will be for the next thirty seconds -- at least on major roads. Suppose you combine predictive handoff with wifi node federation -- maybe make them adaptive so they learn handoff flow probability. Would that remove a lot of the problems?
Finally, consider how far "ubiquitous" really needs to go. Suppose we started with the limitation, "As long as you're traveling slower than a quick jog." That would still be a pretty big step forward.
802.11 based systems aren't good at many things that existing cellular systems are. It doesn't have soft handoffs and doesn't work well when the same network has adjacent cells using the same channel. For 2.4 GHz 802.11, there are only 3 non-overlapping channels.
Good info
802.11 can't support devices at the same distances / similar power as modern cellular networks.
If you could solve the first point above, would that be a problem if open hotspots (or something similar) were ubiquitous?
You'd still need long distance for low population areas, but there isn't a spectrum crunch out there. The spectrum crunch is where population density is high -- which is where large numbers of land-line connected wireless repeaters of some sort seem to be able to solve the problem.
Admittedly, this is way outside of any kind of existing feasible business model -- but peculiar new problems seem like a decent place for peculiar new solutions.
I am genuinely curious what you think -- I think it would serve us all well if we could figure out a workable solution.
"'We are fast entering a world where mass-market mobile devices consume thousands of megabytes each month,' FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski warned at CTIA Wireless yesterday. 'So we must ask: what happens when every mobile user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, a BlackBerry Tour, or whatever the next device is? What happens when we quadruple the number of subscribers with mobile broadband on their laptops or netbooks?'"
Is the problem all the silos? Suppose every house with a land-line connection also had a wi-fi hub that was open. I think the bandwidth problem would not exist.
We'd be left with the "how can we profit on this" problem and the "how can the FBI spy on this" problem, but those don't seem nearly as important as the "how can we make information access ubiquitous and fast" problem.
The lawyers for the film industry claimed iiNet had done 'nothing' to discourage copyright infringement on its network.
That's all well and good, but what about the copper mines? Clearly the copper mines that extracted the copper used in the wires and traces of those infringers' computers did not lift a finger to prevent copyrighted patterns of ones and zeros from being sent as signals across their copper conductors. We simply cannot have unreasonable copyright enforcement until every company whose products or services touch infringing material is brought to justice.
In this corner, wearing the blue and yellow trunks, weighing in at 800 pounds, he's pure gorilla madness, we have -- Big Copyright!
And in this corner, wearing the green and pink trunks, weighing in at 800 points, he's the thrilla gorilla, we have -- Big Copyright!
Alright gentleman (and I use that term loosely), I want a dirty fight, with obscure legal references, wildly out of control laws, and frequent appeals to artistic freedom, the rights of the performer, and the advance of the useful arts when you really mean "money." We're also going to expect at least $1 million to go to lawyers on each side, and another $1 million each in extra campaign contributions this year. When you hear the bell ring, come out and start working the groin!
Let's get readyyyyyyyyy to rummmmmmbullllll. (am I going to get sued for typing that?)
Having purchased laws sufficient for them to eat their customers and finding their appetite still unsated, big copyright is now using its own laws against itself. There have been a few stories like this recently. That is so awesome. Mmmmm, mmmm, how does chewing on your own leg taste, buddy? Sure am happy to see that your laws are so strict, and your arrogant contempt has grown so complete, that you have actually started hating yourself. Have fun knuckleheads -- I'll be over here watching user generated content.
AAPT's advertising states: 'If you want unlimited music, unlimited games and unlimited movies -- get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT.' AFACT executive director Adrianne Pecotic said: 'In the context of the AAPT promotion, we have a concern that it could be misconstrued to promote illegal downloads and that's something that we'd like clarified.'
I think AAPT should comply as quickly as possible. Here's the copy change I would recommend:
'If you want unlimited music, unlimited games and unlimited movies -- get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT, and content from Podcasts and other user generated media that encourages you to consume it, in the way you desire. Traditional media from the major labels does not want you to consume it the way you want. They do not want your business in the way you want to give it. So -- don't.'
Slashdot Mirror
I find your post very stimulating, and intend to respond. It is very rich and I'd like to give it the chance to affect my thinking rather than just reply from the hip. I'll dig in after work this evening.
Everybody wants to wrap themselves in the flag of the free market, and claim that their view is the definition of free market. Let me take a quick moment to define a few terms:
Free Market: Objective is to maximize the efficiency of allocation of resources by maximizing the ability of people to make rational, informed, free decisions on how to transact liquid wealth.
Laissez Faire: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by minimizing government involvement in corporate decision making (typically except those decisions regarding contracts, copyright, trademark, patents, and trade dress).
Libertarian: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by minimizing government involvement in all decision making (typically except those decisions regarding contracts, copyright, trademark, patents, and trade dress).
Capitalism: Believes that the objective of the free market can best be achieved by maximizing return on capital.
The proponents of each of the latter three beliefs above profess that their belief system is synonymous with the free market. However, since they are all explicitly maximizing or minimizing different things than what the free market maximizes, it is not by definition that they are synonymous. Hence their hypothesis of synonymity is subject to analysis and disproof -- even if you fully accept the primacy of the free market.
Putting aside the argument that 91% is not really a true monopoly (only 100% market share is a monopoly)
Yes, agreed. I meant in the more common and less technically accurate sense of monopoly/duopoly/n-opoly; a sufficiently narrow set of suppliers that direct competition in the market is not the regulating force, but rather the threat of being displaced. That threat, of course, hangs on customers being sufficiently dissatisfied that overcoming the barriers to entry is a good capital risk.
Yes, to the degree that a company is a monopoly, they do suffer the same failings that any central authority would have, and this is why a monopoly must eventually fall from its own weight. As soon as those incorrect decisions are made, they begin to lose market share until competition comes in to correct the situation.
That is true in a theoretical efficient free market. In the real market, are there any barriers to competition in this case? I would posit that there are -- primarily they are the need to put cables in the ground. That barrier is significant, and casts a significant shadow on the threat of competition being a regulating force.
So, there are few or no direct market competitors and new competitors have a significant barrier to entry. Will the actual market price be above, below, or the same as the free market price?
Owning stuff is nice, but to understand the goal we shouldn't ask Adam Smith, we should ask Abraham Maslow.
Maslow attempts to establish the definition of wealth. Wealth is the ability to satisfy wants, and Maslow supposes that the wants of all humans can be codified and prioritized. But I ask you, can you say with certainty that a devout Muslim in the Golan Heights has the same priorities on Maslow's chart as an agnostic kindergarten teacher and mother of three from Poughkeepsie?
A significant tenet of Adam Smith's hypothesis is that it is folly to assume that we can precisely codify human wants. Lacking that, the best we can do is create a system in which we maximize the opportunity for each individual to express his wants and seek their satisfaction.
Maslow's work is brilliant, informative, and extremely useful in many fields. It even has a very strong place in the study of economics. Whether it can be used as a foundation on which to build a system of economic law which maximizes the satisfaction of wants, however, is a very different question.
a central authority cannot possibly have all of the information necessary to make the correct decisions when manipulating the economy.
While that is true, do not monopolies constitute a central authority in the market in which they have a monopoly?
ACTA will include a section on Internet "enforcement procedures" after all.
Dear Imperial Overlords,
Are you familiar with the term "radicalize"?
Are you aware that the script kiddies of the world are extremely unskilled?
Do you really think you control, or can control, the Internet?
You are guests in our world. Try reading some cypherpunk. Me, I'm interested in other things, but keep this up, and an increasing number in our community will begin to get defensive and protect our community from you interlopers.
Just the facts, not trying to be a dick or anything.
Have a good day,
Bob
I'm also not sure a return to the time when the company that runs the physical layer has no reason to upgrade to allow more bandwidth is in our best interest.
There is an incredibly simple market solution for this. Eliminate the advertising of "unlimited" when it really means "limited". If they simply sold tiered access, with full and simple disclosure, the money could flow to the higher tiers as the users increase their appetite for bits. Let the free market flow the cash to those who provision more bandwidth, and the profit motive will magically solve the rest.
OK, who are you going to believe: Harvard, Adam Smith, and a bunch of empirical evidence, or the oligopolists who have monopoly rents to defend? Competition never did anything good for anyone who was in charge of an existing monopoly. Competition may be one of the fundamental tenets of free market capitalism, and may be a principle requirement for maximization of both GDP and a society's ability to satisfy wants, but it simply does not guarantee those who have attained wealth and power that they will be able to continue their acquisition of it without trying very hard.
Ask yourself what is really important here: The principles of economics which are supposed to be the bedrock of our superpower status, or the rights of a few CEOs to do a poor job and charge whatever they want?
Except if it was so terrifying, why did she do everything but call the police, who have the powers to actually investigate things like this and would have probably figured out in about 5 minutes who sent the emails?
I had it happen to me once, for real threats though (at least they were really being made, not that they came to pass). He said when he was going to come over, which should have made it obvious to me that he didn't intend to follow through, but I was young and stupid. I didn't call the police. I just invited a couple friends over. I figured if he wanted to come get his ass beat it would be an entertaining evening all 'round, except for him.
Now, my reason is obviously not hers (and I'm a vastly different person now), but claiming to understand how a person who feels threatened will respond shows more hubris than awareness. Maybe she was embarrassed to tell the police she was scared, maybe she got laughed at by an authority figure when she was young. Or maybe she didn't want to waste their time with something so inconsequential, maybe she had an authority figure scold her for wasting their time.
Or maybe she's a dissocial opportunistic asshat. But you don't know that based exclusively on the fact that she did not call the police. Why don't abused women call the police?
I think giving her 10 million seems high,
I think I'd lean toward her getting $1m, and Toyota and S&S each having to pay $100m in court fees for having to adjudicate crap like this.
>> If Richard Stallman wanted to help open source, he would resign from the FSF.
> RMS doesn't give a crap about open source. He advocates Free Software.
And I'd add, most of us don't give a crap about open source. Most of us (who have an opinion on software licensing, anyway) advocate Open Source (and/or Free Software), not open source. There is a big difference. Just being allowed to see the source code is not enough. Not grasping that distinction makes me skeptical of GP's grasp of legal space under discussion.
Or maybe conveniently located rentable lockers will start showing up at the theater, which you can pay to store all your potentially infringing devices.
Ooooo - I like that idea. Then, while you're in the theater, the duly authorized officials from the RIAA and MPAA can search your hard drive for stolen music and movies. :)
For customers, the message is clear: leave your laptop in the car.
I have a better answer: When they ask you to put your laptop in your car, ask for your money back and leave. Is it really worth being treated like a criminal to see that movie right now? Customer service matters. If the proprietor of some establishment is a dick, don't give him your money.
However, if you wanted to build a small UAV that could accurately provide location and elevation data, could navigate correctly, and had a proper flight control/autopilot system, there's no way around hard work and math.
What if you wanted something less? What if you wanted the least expensive thing that could contribute to the total mission? (with the real UAVs handling the important operations)
GPS navigation is very cool, but for a military UAV, any number of issues can arise that can cause a loss of GPS data.
What if you had 50 of them, and 49 lost their data?
Most COTS electronics cannot handle weather, vibration, or sudden acceleration well, and quality costs.
What if you make loss part of the plan?
Mistakes kill, and there are no shortcuts.
Mistakes with UAVs that are considered unreliable as a mission parameter do not kill, so there are lots of shortcuts.
If I'm putting together a real UAV, here's my standard stack:
What would be your standard stack if you were putting together a fake UAV? (one that flew around, took pictures, had a wonky autopilot, and crashed occasionally)
The system is enclosed in a carbon fiber case;
Yegads! Rip that thing off and toss it -- adds weight, and all it does is protect $100 worth of electronics. Just shrink-wrap the board and mount it with rubber bands. :)
Basically, what I'm saying is precision and reliability are not cheap.
Basically, what I'm saying is precision and reliability are not necessary for every mission, particularly if you have high redundancy and the missions are exploratory.
Aviation software is the most rigorously tested and verified software in the world
I worked with an aviation software engineer from Boeing for a while. He was freaky smart and a little scary. Don't use that software, use the Open Source stuff that crashes occasionally -- there's no people on these, and you leave the critical mission stuff to the real UAVs.
Anyway, hope that gives you a little glimpse into the world of someone who has done real UAV work. :)
Definitely very cool stuff. Here's my incinerator, which cost significantly less than a waste management facility (the savings was roughly enough to buy a waste management facility):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB7LB7gXrm8
http://beach.traxel.com/incinerator/set_one/incinerator.html
Anyway, hope that gives you a little glimpse into the world of someone who has done real minimalist engineering. :)
Also consider:
- Most influential rifle in modern history: AK
- Most influential armored vehicle in modern history: Sherman
- Most influential naval vessel in modern history: Liberty Ship
What do those all have in common? I would posit that it is that they are among the worst in their class, except for being cheap, disposable, and plentiful. The United States is awesome at the super-high-tech stuff, but I think we're even better at bodging.
Another way to look at it: Is the perfect the enemy of the good?
FD: I am an aerospace engineer and have significant experience in UAV development, particularly aircraft design and avionics selection.
Excellent! I do love the breadth and depth of expertise that is available here in our community. Thanks for replying.
I am curious what your thoughts are regarding the forum linked below:
http://www.rcgroups.com/uav-unmanned-aerial-vehicles-238/
Looks like these Reaper drones are the real wave of the future, eh?
At $10.9m, I'd rather see them going cheaper, and deploying more. Having seen the advances in home-built drones at Maker Faire and on RCGroups and having done a little myself, that price is absolutely ludicrous. You need $10.9m aircraft to reduce the risk that the components (or humans, if manned) will be lost in combat or fall into enemy hands. But if you use cheap commodity components, you don't need it to survive.
I do think there is a role for Reapers -- send them in for advanced missions and when you need to shoot. But for getting a look at the bad guys without putting anyone in harm's way? A $2k tricked out R/C airplane will get you there.
Nice side bonus: If you have a lot more planes, you can give more soldiers stick time. Not that war is fun, but if you're going to be in a war, it's nice to have a productive diversion.
"The Daily Climate reports that President Obama and Congress are pushing to identify thousands of contaminated landfills and abandoned mines -- 'brownfields' that could be repurposed to house wind farms, solar arrays, and geothermal power plants. Using already disturbed lands would help avoid conflicts between renewable energy developers and environmental groups concerned about impacts to wildlife habitat. 'In the next decade there's going to be a lot of renewable energy built, and all that has to go somewhere,' said Jessica Goad, an energy and climate change policy fellow for The Wilderness Society.
That's all well and good for the ducks, but what about landowners who have invested good money and hosted dozens of elbow-rubbing parties over the years to develop a relationship with congresspeople and senators? How are they supposed to get the government to buy their $60 per acre swampland for $2500 per acre? Reusing land the government has already paid for severely depresses the corrupt real estate deal market, with nothing more to show for it than reduced public spending.
Won't somebody please think of the well-connected?!?
This is of course an implied criticism of former US president George W Bush and the neo-conservatives, who were often accused of trying to change the world in their image.
Hey, that editorial crack is completely unfair.
They were not trying to turn the world into a more back-biting, Machiavellian, toy for manipulation by megacorporation advertising and strong-arm back-door deals.
They were succeeding. "Trying" is for sissies.
Disclaimer: The above is a joke and is not intended to imply that I like the current course significantly better than the old one. New corruption pretends to sweep clean, but it's still corruption, and we still employ Halliburton and Blackwater.
If a 802.11-derived network was designed to provide the features of a modern cellular network, it will retain little in common with 802.11.
I can live with that.
But I'm guessing that is more to indicate a different problem; 802.11 is the standard, and ubiquity would be most rapidly served by adhering to the standard. Fair enough -- so 802.11 compatibility would be an objective. But if we could only solve the ubiquity problem with a new standard, wouldn't it be worth looking down that path?
It's not possible to avoid centralized coordination of all access points; otherwise, you'd just be switching between different Internet connections every hundred feet or so.
How centralized? As centralized as an ant or bee colony? Could we achieve that? How about smart nodes that know about their thousand closest neighbors and how to handle handoff? How about adaptive nodes that learn the patterns of probable handoff?
Suppose you toss in a server that you use as a proxy. It knows how to chunk large transmissions and parcel them out to your volatile IP address, so you only have to get a few hundred bytes from each node you pass.
It's already possible to have low-powered base stations that are connected to a residential Internet connection, though. AT&T offers such a device.
An interesting concept. How is the market penetration? Does it help solve the bandwidth crunch Genachowski mentions? Does it do better or worse at that than a decentralized solution would?
Good luck solving soft handoff for a bus traveling at 45 km/h or 30 mph.
You have a good point.
So then, how would you solve it? Forget luck -- we're Slashdotters, a fair bit smarter than the average bear -- how would you do it?
Three quick ideas: Caltrain, smart roads, and start with what you can solve.
Caltrain (like many public transit systems) has wifi on board (I think -- one of the ones around here does -- I walk to work). So for mass transit, there is a mobile solution out there that is already working.
The smart roads side I am not as sure on, but the rough idea is that you can predict with some degree of certainty where each device will be for the next thirty seconds -- at least on major roads. Suppose you combine predictive handoff with wifi node federation -- maybe make them adaptive so they learn handoff flow probability. Would that remove a lot of the problems?
Finally, consider how far "ubiquitous" really needs to go. Suppose we started with the limitation, "As long as you're traveling slower than a quick jog." That would still be a pretty big step forward.
802.11 based systems aren't good at many things that existing cellular systems are. It doesn't have soft handoffs and doesn't work well when the same network has adjacent cells using the same channel. For 2.4 GHz 802.11, there are only 3 non-overlapping channels.
Good info
802.11 can't support devices at the same distances / similar power as modern cellular networks.
If you could solve the first point above, would that be a problem if open hotspots (or something similar) were ubiquitous?
You'd still need long distance for low population areas, but there isn't a spectrum crunch out there. The spectrum crunch is where population density is high -- which is where large numbers of land-line connected wireless repeaters of some sort seem to be able to solve the problem.
Admittedly, this is way outside of any kind of existing feasible business model -- but peculiar new problems seem like a decent place for peculiar new solutions.
I am genuinely curious what you think -- I think it would serve us all well if we could figure out a workable solution.
"'We are fast entering a world where mass-market mobile devices consume thousands of megabytes each month,' FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski warned at CTIA Wireless yesterday. 'So we must ask: what happens when every mobile user has an iPhone, a Palm Pre, a BlackBerry Tour, or whatever the next device is? What happens when we quadruple the number of subscribers with mobile broadband on their laptops or netbooks?'"
Is the problem all the silos? Suppose every house with a land-line connection also had a wi-fi hub that was open. I think the bandwidth problem would not exist.
We'd be left with the "how can we profit on this" problem and the "how can the FBI spy on this" problem, but those don't seem nearly as important as the "how can we make information access ubiquitous and fast" problem.
The lawyers for the film industry claimed iiNet had done 'nothing' to discourage copyright infringement on its network.
That's all well and good, but what about the copper mines? Clearly the copper mines that extracted the copper used in the wires and traces of those infringers' computers did not lift a finger to prevent copyrighted patterns of ones and zeros from being sent as signals across their copper conductors. We simply cannot have unreasonable copyright enforcement until every company whose products or services touch infringing material is brought to justice.
In this corner, wearing the blue and yellow trunks, weighing in at 800 pounds, he's pure gorilla madness, we have -- Big Copyright!
And in this corner, wearing the green and pink trunks, weighing in at 800 points, he's the thrilla gorilla, we have -- Big Copyright!
Alright gentleman (and I use that term loosely), I want a dirty fight, with obscure legal references, wildly out of control laws, and frequent appeals to artistic freedom, the rights of the performer, and the advance of the useful arts when you really mean "money." We're also going to expect at least $1 million to go to lawyers on each side, and another $1 million each in extra campaign contributions this year. When you hear the bell ring, come out and start working the groin!
Let's get readyyyyyyyyy to rummmmmmbullllll. (am I going to get sued for typing that?)
Having purchased laws sufficient for them to eat their customers and finding their appetite still unsated, big copyright is now using its own laws against itself. There have been a few stories like this recently. That is so awesome. Mmmmm, mmmm, how does chewing on your own leg taste, buddy? Sure am happy to see that your laws are so strict, and your arrogant contempt has grown so complete, that you have actually started hating yourself. Have fun knuckleheads -- I'll be over here watching user generated content.
AAPT's advertising states: 'If you want unlimited music, unlimited games and unlimited movies -- get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT.' AFACT executive director Adrianne Pecotic said: 'In the context of the AAPT promotion, we have a concern that it could be misconstrued to promote illegal downloads and that's something that we'd like clarified.'
I think AAPT should comply as quickly as possible. Here's the copy change I would recommend:
'If you want unlimited music, unlimited games and unlimited movies -- get unlimited off-peak broadband downloads from AAPT, and content from Podcasts and other user generated media that encourages you to consume it, in the way you desire. Traditional media from the major labels does not want you to consume it the way you want. They do not want your business in the way you want to give it. So -- don't.'