Wyoming is currently exploding with Windfarm development.
The Global Warming interests expressing concern about the use of oil, coal, and other fossil fuels (from which Wyoming gets a lot of revenue) have been championing the use of solar and solar derived sources (like wind).
Recently those same interests have started complaining about the effects of all those large rotary bird/bat swatters on the ecosystem.
I wish they'd at least be clear or honest about what they really want.
Why would the government want to tax industry from which they gain revenues to operate?
The U.S. government (and some state governments) have imposed taxes on cigarettes to acquire funds. Initially the justification was to use the tax revenue for the treatment of cancer and other smoking related illnesses. Many of those tax revenues were diverted at inception for other completely unrelated purposes.
Taxation is fluid. If one revenue source dries up, another will be identified.
So the assertion that little snippits of everyday detritus are of value to the not so casual archeologist or anthropologist. Some here even claim that possibly preserving text messaging "content" is of value.
I look at the completely polarized opinions posted here from those who claim to be neutral (I have my doubts) as well as those that are unabashedly partesan, and I know that if this particular Slashdot post and the ensuing discussion were to be analyzed by some hapless archeologist or anthropologist, they would be completely unable to discern the truth about history, much less the quality of any of the presidents discussed here.
The indirect effects of operation of the LHC are much more likely to cause the end of civilization as we know it, i.e.: the resultant Global Warming from generating the power to operate it versus the results of discharging the oversized subatomic BB gun.
OK. So throw away the webcam irrelevances, memos about the lunch menu, birthday wishes, what new limos the Secret Service just ordered, times of arrival to state dinners, whether it snowed at Camp David or Crawford. All the frothy-mouthed radical lefties will find it easy to just cut and paste into an indictment and get the ball rolling. Why waste taxpayer money actually investigating when the perps already know what's actionable and have the technology to self-incriminate so quickly!
Argh. No! You never say "Don't tax Peter or Paul. Tax Mary! The government will tax all four of you. Never ever vote for a new tax, or even an increase. It will come too easy, and you'll never be able to get rid of it.
Over a decade ago the town where I live passed a tax that was supposed to subsidize a "new business" coming into being, justifying the action claiming the new business will attract a lot of customers for other businesses in town. The Tax was only supposed to have a duration of two years. The new business failed, but the tax is still with us. After the 2 year period, the city declared the original need for the tax to be fulfilled, but they had these other things needing immediate attention...
I have never found a soul that admits they voted for the tax. A great many people claim to have voted against it.
If a politician says they're going to lower taxes, they MAY be lying. If they say they're going to RAISE taxes, they're most certainly telling the truth.
The first is a form of fiscal russian roulette. The second is as certain as "death and taxes".
You're kidding. Right? I can't believe you've never heard a politician campaign with lower taxation as part of the justification for voting for them. When you hear strident debate about making tax cuts permanent versus abolishing tax cuts, well... It's your money and your vote.
Taxation = Government sanctioned "theft by conversion"...
"the only thing earth observation satellites will ever do is predict doomsday scenarios"
Weather satellites are earth observation satelliites. The data they gather saves lives. How is that a doomsday scenario? And what about prevention of property damage? Don't throw Katrina in my face. What happened after we saw it coming doesn't count.
As I recall, the derivation of the "square of the distance rule" applies to a point source or an isotropic radiator. When your "point source" is actually a conductor that is miles long, and as much an inadvertant radiator, as a conduction medium, you have to get some distance away before the power line in question starts to behave like a point source. Also, the power line being a conductor strung in free space can't help but have directional characteristics which will manifest itself in much better or worse reception (or interference) depending on your heading from the non-point source.
Innocence is a characteristic only assignable to humans. It's a concept that springs forth from morality, which animals aren't subject to. Animals do things, like kill people, but they cannot bear guilt.
There are people that slaughter animals with no regard to the waste of it all. They hunt only for the antlers, for instance. There are those, like me, that hunt then consume the flesh. Still others hunt for trophies and make every effort to insure the meat doesn't go to waste.
Internet hunting from a practical standpoint is dangerous. Latency alone insures that what you see on the screen is not realtime. You can't know what the real picture is when you click the trigger. If an animal in a herd is the target, you will very likely wound a different animal when you click. It's as risky as so called "sound" shots. A person that has been through firearms training, and had the lessons stick, will recognize the danger.
Actually, the people of Spain threw out their previous leader because he stupidly tried to blame the bombings on ETA (Basque separatists) and the public saw right through him (Al-Quaida repeatedly reiterated their responsibility). He lost the election because he insisted on trying to blame the wrong terrorists.
Check your "facts". Don't let the evening news program you.
The upper frequency limits of BPL are supposed to be 80 MHZ. Nyquist give us a limit on sample rate. Shannon tells us that noise is also to be reckoned with. Our data rate will be lower than theoretical (what a surprise!). Look at all the noise; crosstalk, corona discharge (power lines are very noisey on their own), the proclivity of power lines to act as antennas (receive and transmit). You will very quickly see the nature of power lines themselves throttling back your useful bandwidth.
You will be sharing your particular piece of this proposed vast collision domain with everyone else on your network segment and possibly even more than them. Bye bye more bandwidth.
Now consider that nature throws electrical storms, high winds that wiggle the connections constantly, extreme temperature swings, earth tremors, ect., to the point that what you get is the physical world punching your network (hence it's bandwidth) right in the face with even more interference.
Also, the next time you're out driving around, take a look at all the fuses, disconnects, and other control apparati the power companies put up on the poles to control and isolate segments, and you end up with a lot of points of failure that are exposed to the physical world. Power lines were engineered first and foremost to deliver POWER to customers. The infrastructure put in place is designed specifically for this. Data is a Johnny-come-lately the infrastructure wasn't engineered for. A lot of retrofits are in store just to get things working at all, much less well.
Oh, and a UPS isn't going to keep you online if a lightning strike blows one of those fuses up on the pole. The segment will become isolated (without any connectivity) if that happens.
Oh well. If you have a UPS and have the phone modem still installed in your computer, you can dial-up. Right?
By the way. The FCC isn't the only entity with a say-so over the RF spectrum. The NTIA regulates radio for the federal government (Yes folks. Once again, what's sauce for us geese, isn't sauce for them ganders!)....Point is; the NTIA doesn't seem to like BPL much, either.
Since it's been mentioned in several reply posts, the following URL points to a web page where you can download a somewhat detailed PDF format spectrum chart (105 kb):
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.htm
I don't know how up to date it is, but it still gives you an overall picture who has the lion's share of usage.
Hundreds of millions, huh? Sounds like a drop in the bucket when federal yearly revenues break into the trillions. Probably not worth the paperwork it would take to try and recover some pocket change.
Tax or "user fee" everything that moves including amplitude, frequency, or phase.
The revenues the government would get from taxing the sales of devices that use this spectrum would far exceed anything the FCC could hope to get from fee assessment or spectrum auction on their own. An auction is a one time deal. Fee assessment only comes periodically. Tax revenues are a steady stream that keeps on coming as old devices and their limited uses are replaced by newer, more capable trinkets.
I find it noteworthy that Microsoft stayed in large part out of the political contributions arena until the government started threatening to force Microsoft to change what so far remains a lucrative business model. The fact that more cash went to the Republicans is due to a Democratic controlled Department of Justice turning up the heat. The favoring of Republicans was simply trying to test things to see if the conservatives would treat them any differently. The Democrats got some favorable financial treatment because some of them didn't like what the administration was doing any more than some Republicans.
It would have been better if the government had stayed out of the fight because:
(1) Microsoft would have stayed out of the political financing racket.
(2) Alternatives products are quietly preparing to kick Microsoft's ass in certain marketing
venues.
Point 1 backfired because it helped the Republicans which are already seen as the enemy of fair competition and the small guy. Oops. You'd think the anti-Microsoft croud would have known better than to go to the government for help because politicos only do things that increase each one's clout. Look at the DMCA as an example. Hollywood will contribute the bejesus out of politicians that go along with them.
As a conservative I look at certain things that have come from Open Source with glee. For instance I firmly believe that current Linux marketing provides an arena where distributors have to compete not on the control of a base platform, but exclusively on the value THEY ADD to the base. The market will choose the best Value. Simple competition.
And before I forget, quite a few respondents to the original post have based their remarks on the idea that we live in a democracy. It needs to be said once again that we live in a "Representational Republic", not a democracy. We don't vote on everything. We elect officials that (hopefully) represent us when they do the voting.
Terrestrial microwave communication links run in the single and (more rarely) double digit wattage levels. An average microwave oven is higher by 2 orders of magnitude in power. Microwave links achieve reliability by using very narrow beam (highly directional) antennea to steer that pittance of wattage in the intended direction supplemented with high gain antennea at the receiver. Power isn't a threat unless you insinuate yourself directly into the RF path where path loss and power vs. distance laws still apply to limit the distance of harm. They're no more dangerous than an AC power outlet.
Not really. It's very likely they can break the
crypto now. The real purpose would be to afford
the authorities the ability to punish you for
making them spend the effort necessary.
The trade off is your willingness to take
something away from me so you can have a comforting illusion of safety. I'm more
fearful of you than any terrorist. I might
be able to use my second amendment rights
against them.
If software is released with an exploitable error
then damage has already been done. If someone discovers the flaw, someone else can as well. Unfortunately a whitehat's disclosure will potentially contribute more damage. However, if
a whitehat discovers an exploit and keeps quiet,
then a knowing blackhat can do far more widespread
damage.
If your doctor found cancer in you, you'd prefer
he'd tell you and do the chemotherapy (with all
it's ravages) than keep silent about the diagnosis.
QuakeWorld TeamFortress. I tried it after deathmatch and CTF, and never went back. I played
it almost every day for 2 years. TeamFortress
under the Half-Life engine is OK but falls short
of the original. Counterstrike is a specialized
TF by another name with it's own merits.
I remember early morning skirmishes on 2fort23
and smallforts as the best of times. What has
followed is just an imitation of what was...
Slashdot Mirror
Wyoming is currently exploding with Windfarm development.
The Global Warming interests expressing concern about the
use of oil, coal, and other fossil fuels (from which Wyoming
gets a lot of revenue) have been championing the use of solar
and solar derived sources (like wind).
Recently those same interests have started complaining about
the effects of all those large rotary bird/bat swatters on the
ecosystem.
I wish they'd at least be clear or honest about what they really want.
Why would the government want to tax industry from which they
gain revenues to operate?
The U.S. government (and some state governments) have imposed
taxes on cigarettes to acquire funds. Initially the justification was to
use the tax revenue for the treatment of cancer and other smoking
related illnesses. Many of those tax revenues were diverted at
inception for other completely unrelated purposes.
Taxation is fluid. If one revenue source dries up, another will be identified.
So the assertion that little snippits of everyday
detritus are of value to the not so casual
archeologist or anthropologist. Some here even
claim that possibly preserving text messaging
"content" is of value.
I look at the completely polarized opinions posted
here from those who claim to be neutral (I have my
doubts) as well as those that are unabashedly
partesan, and I know that if this particular
Slashdot post and the ensuing discussion were
to be analyzed by some hapless archeologist
or anthropologist, they would be completely unable
to discern the truth about history, much less the
quality of any of the presidents discussed here.
The indirect effects of operation of the LHC are
much more likely to cause the end of civilization
as we know it, i.e.: the resultant Global Warming
from generating the power to operate it versus
the results of discharging the oversized subatomic
BB gun.
OK. So throw away the webcam irrelevances, memos
about the lunch menu, birthday wishes, what
new limos the Secret Service just ordered, times
of arrival to state dinners, whether it snowed at
Camp David or Crawford. All the frothy-mouthed
radical lefties will find it easy to just cut and
paste into an indictment and get the ball rolling.
Why waste taxpayer money actually investigating
when the perps already know what's actionable and
have the technology to self-incriminate so
quickly!
Argh. No! You never say "Don't tax Peter or Paul. Tax Mary!
The government will tax all four of you. Never ever vote
for a new tax, or even an increase. It will come too easy, and
you'll never be able to get rid of it.
Over a decade ago the town where I live passed a tax that was
supposed to subsidize a "new business" coming into being,
justifying the action claiming the new business will attract a
lot of customers for other businesses in town. The Tax was only
supposed to have a duration of two years. The new business
failed, but the tax is still with us. After the 2 year period,
the city declared the original need for the tax to be fulfilled,
but they had these other things needing immediate attention...
I have never found a soul that admits they voted for the tax.
A great many people claim to have voted against it.
If a politician says they're going to lower taxes, they MAY
be lying. If they say they're going to RAISE taxes, they're
most certainly telling the truth.
The first is a form of fiscal russian roulette. The second
is as certain as "death and taxes".
"How the hell did we get to this point?"
You're kidding. Right? I can't believe you've never heard a politician
campaign with lower taxation as part of the justification for voting
for them. When you hear strident debate about making tax cuts
permanent versus abolishing tax cuts, well... It's your money and
your vote.
Taxation = Government sanctioned "theft by conversion"...
"the only thing earth observation satellites will ever do is predict doomsday scenarios"
Weather satellites are earth observation satelliites. The data they
gather saves lives. How is that a doomsday scenario? And what about
prevention of property damage? Don't throw Katrina in my face.
What happened after we saw it coming doesn't count.
As I recall, the derivation of the "square of the distance rule"
applies to a point source or an isotropic radiator. When your
"point source" is actually a conductor that is miles long, and as
much an inadvertant radiator, as a conduction medium, you have to
get some distance away before the power line in question starts
to behave like a point source. Also, the power line being a conductor
strung in free space can't help but have directional characteristics
which will manifest itself in much better or worse reception (or
interference) depending on your heading from the non-point source.
Innocence is a characteristic only assignable
to humans. It's a concept that springs forth
from morality, which animals aren't subject to.
Animals do things, like kill people, but they
cannot bear guilt.
There are people that slaughter animals with
no regard to the waste of it all. They hunt
only for the antlers, for instance. There are
those, like me, that hunt then consume the
flesh. Still others hunt for trophies and make
every effort to insure the meat doesn't go
to waste.
Internet hunting from a practical standpoint
is dangerous. Latency alone insures that what
you see on the screen is not realtime. You can't
know what the real picture is when you click the
trigger. If an animal in a herd is the target,
you will very likely wound a different animal
when you click. It's as risky as so called
"sound" shots. A person that has been through
firearms training, and had the lessons stick,
will recognize the danger.
Actually, the people of Spain threw out their
previous leader because he stupidly tried to blame
the bombings on ETA (Basque separatists) and the
public saw right through him (Al-Quaida repeatedly
reiterated their responsibility). He lost the
election because he insisted on trying to blame
the wrong terrorists.
Check your "facts". Don't let the evening news
program you.
The upper frequency limits of BPL are supposed
to be 80 MHZ. Nyquist give us a limit on sample
rate. Shannon tells us that noise is also to be
reckoned with. Our data rate will be lower than
theoretical (what a surprise!). Look at all the
noise; crosstalk, corona discharge (power lines
are very noisey on their own), the proclivity of
power lines to act as antennas (receive and
transmit). You will very quickly see the nature
of power lines themselves throttling back your
useful bandwidth.
You will be sharing your particular piece of
this proposed vast collision domain with everyone else on your network segment and possibly even
more than them. Bye bye more bandwidth.
Now consider that nature throws electrical
storms, high winds that wiggle the connections
constantly, extreme temperature swings, earth
tremors, ect., to the point that what you get
is the physical world punching your network
(hence it's bandwidth) right in the face with
even more interference.
Also, the next time you're out driving around,
take a look at all the fuses, disconnects, and
other control apparati the power companies put
up on the poles to control and isolate segments,
and you end up with a lot of points of failure
that are exposed to the physical world. Power
lines were engineered first and foremost to
deliver POWER to customers. The infrastructure
put in place is designed specifically for this.
Data is a Johnny-come-lately the infrastructure wasn't engineered for. A lot of retrofits are in
store just to get things working at all, much
less well.
Oh, and a UPS isn't going to keep you online if
a lightning strike blows one of those fuses
up on the pole. The segment will become isolated
(without any connectivity) if that happens.
Oh well. If you have a UPS and have the phone
modem still installed in your computer, you can
dial-up. Right?
By the way. The FCC isn't the only entity with
a say-so over the RF spectrum. The NTIA regulates
radio for the federal government (Yes folks. Once
again, what's sauce for us geese, isn't sauce for them ganders!).
seem to like BPL much, either.
Since it's been mentioned in several reply posts,
the following URL points to a web page where you
can download a somewhat detailed PDF format spectrum chart (105 kb):
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/osmhome/allochrt.htm
I don't know how up to date it is, but it still
gives you an overall picture who has the lion's
share of usage.
Hundreds of millions, huh? Sounds like a drop
in the bucket when federal yearly revenues
break into the trillions. Probably not worth
the paperwork it would take to try and recover
some pocket change.
Tax or "user fee" everything that moves
including amplitude, frequency, or phase.
The revenues the government would get from
taxing the sales of devices that use this
spectrum would far exceed anything the FCC
could hope to get from fee assessment or
spectrum auction on their own. An auction
is a one time deal. Fee assessment only
comes periodically. Tax revenues are a
steady stream that keeps on coming as old
devices and their limited uses are replaced
by newer, more capable trinkets.
I find it noteworthy that Microsoft stayed in large part out of the political contributions arena until the government started threatening to force Microsoft to change what so far remains a lucrative business model. The fact that more cash went to the Republicans is due to a Democratic controlled Department of Justice turning up the heat. The favoring of Republicans was simply trying to test things to see if the conservatives would treat them any differently. The Democrats got some favorable financial treatment because some of them didn't like what the administration was doing any more than some Republicans.
It would have been better if the government had stayed out of the fight because:
(1) Microsoft would have stayed out of the political financing racket.
(2) Alternatives products are quietly preparing to kick Microsoft's ass in certain marketing
venues.
Point 1 backfired because it helped the Republicans which are already seen as the enemy of fair competition and the small guy. Oops. You'd think the anti-Microsoft croud would have known better than to go to the government for help because politicos only do things that increase each one's clout. Look at the DMCA as an example. Hollywood will contribute the bejesus out of politicians that go along with them.
As a conservative I look at certain things that have come from Open Source with glee. For instance I firmly believe that current Linux marketing provides an arena where distributors have to compete not on the control of a base platform, but exclusively on the value THEY ADD
to the base. The market will choose the best Value. Simple competition.
And before I forget, quite a few respondents to the original post have based their remarks on the idea that we live in a democracy. It needs to be said once again that we live in a "Representational Republic", not a democracy. We don't vote on everything. We elect officials that (hopefully) represent us when they do the voting.
Terrestrial microwave communication links run
in the single and (more rarely) double digit
wattage levels. An average microwave oven is
higher by 2 orders of magnitude in power.
Microwave links achieve reliability by using
very narrow beam (highly directional) antennea
to steer that pittance of wattage in the intended
direction supplemented with high gain antennea
at the receiver. Power isn't a threat unless
you insinuate yourself directly into the RF path
where path loss and power vs. distance laws still
apply to limit the distance of harm. They're no
more dangerous than an AC power outlet.
Considering all the legitimate uses for guns,
isn't banning them outright going a little too
far?
Not really. It's very likely they can break the
crypto now. The real purpose would be to afford
the authorities the ability to punish you for
making them spend the effort necessary.
Your equation is in error. It should read:
Freedom = Security
The trade off is your willingness to take
something away from me so you can have a comforting illusion of safety. I'm more
fearful of you than any terrorist. I might
be able to use my second amendment rights
against them.
If software is released with an exploitable error then damage has already been done. If someone discovers the flaw, someone else can as well. Unfortunately a whitehat's disclosure will potentially contribute more damage. However, if a whitehat discovers an exploit and keeps quiet, then a knowing blackhat can do far more widespread damage. If your doctor found cancer in you, you'd prefer he'd tell you and do the chemotherapy (with all it's ravages) than keep silent about the diagnosis.
That way every single application will have a network stack so riddled with loopholes, nobody will ever run out of weaknesses to discover and exploit.
Actually, considering what Raskin wants to happen to OSes I'm inclined to think that MS-DOS was headed in just that direction... ;-)
QuakeWorld TeamFortress. I tried it after deathmatch and CTF, and never went back. I played it almost every day for 2 years. TeamFortress under the Half-Life engine is OK but falls short of the original. Counterstrike is a specialized TF by another name with it's own merits. I remember early morning skirmishes on 2fort23 and smallforts as the best of times. What has followed is just an imitation of what was...