I am sure the folks at Rainmaker are extremely accomplished scientists and engineers (Cringley's mistaken remarks about Layer2/Layer3 are no reason to doubt that).
Having said that, there is a wide gap..change that to massive gap between theory and practise. First and foremost, who (i.e, what service revenue) will pay for the headend equipment. Even the most dynamic of companies is not going to invest in technologies if there isnt a good ROI. Leave alone the fact that cable companies are monopolies within their markets with little real incentive to do anything.
We could extend this argument further and talk about the studio infrastructure and the back-bone infrastructure required to produce and transmit so many HDTV channels...but lets stick to the technical aspects. Head-end gear is still relatively doable. The real problem lies in the hundreds and hundreds of amplifiers, repeaters and other devices along the cable plant with nuances of their own
- what frequency spectrum are they able to transmit
- what snr
- what does their spacing have to be
- how clean are the interconnects
- what is the quality of the cable
Im sure these questions are still keeping the Rainmaker folks awake at night.
Speaking of astronomy software, I spent a snowy weekend working on a JAVA version and have uploaded it to sourceforge. It runs both as an application and an applet and is hopefully truly portable. The code is GPLed and I wouldnt mind someone fixing it into a more usable application.
Please take a look at http://www.sf.net/projects/tara/
The best way of getting into astronomy is through your local club. There are several in the greater boston area so I imagine there must be a few where you are. Here is a link to one club listing
http://www.astromart.com/links.asp?c=1
Most clubs have observing places that you should visit on clear nights. Best way to make like-minded friends and get educated about equipment, etc (and to really find out if 'standing in one place in sub-freezing temperature for several hours in pitch dark' is your idea of fun;-)).
Once you get into it, you'll have more suggestions than you'll want and more equipment you'll want to purchase than your wallet can afford:).
PS: NH Astronomer Ed Ting has a great website reviewing telescopes http://www.scopereviews.com
And I dont mean that in a rhetorical sense. Very few people realise that while it is a 3rd world country and somewhat socialistic in its inclinations in the past, entrepreneurship is very active in day to day life. Companies like Infosys, Wipro and others were started by enterprising people in a political environment that sustained it.
China definitely has the talent and the schools to grow it. What china lacks is the personal and social freedom in day to day life. China could be a very prosperous nation if it became somewhat democratic.
I have two d-link DWL650s at home, one on a Win98 laptop and another on a Win2K. With both the laptops sitting side-by-side, about 30 feet from the Linksys WAP, the Win98 laptop had a strong signal (>80%) whereas the Win2k indicated a poor signal ( 0%). And yes, I did interchange the cards between the laptops.
Leads me to believe there is some software setting in the device driver.
I remember reading somewhere that fossil records show that there was a civilization the size of Europe stretching between Western India all the way to Iraq. The most well known records of this are the remains of the Indus Valley civilization (present day Pakistan).
Till this day there is no explanation for why cities and villages amounting to this size slowly disappeared. A meteor would explain a lot.
Nehru did a bit of research on this and has written about extensively in his book 'The discovery of India'. His thinking was some sort of floods may have caused this.
Slashdot Mirror
I am sure the folks at Rainmaker are extremely accomplished scientists and engineers (Cringley's mistaken remarks about Layer2/Layer3 are no reason to doubt that).
Having said that, there is a wide gap..change that to massive gap between theory and practise. First and foremost, who (i.e, what service revenue) will pay for the headend equipment. Even the most dynamic of companies is not going to invest in technologies if there isnt a good ROI. Leave alone the fact that cable companies are monopolies within their markets with little real incentive to do anything.
We could extend this argument further and talk about the studio infrastructure and the back-bone infrastructure required to produce and transmit so many HDTV channels...but lets stick to the technical aspects. Head-end gear is still relatively doable. The real problem lies in the hundreds and hundreds of amplifiers, repeaters and other devices along the cable plant with nuances of their own
- what frequency spectrum are they able to transmit
- what snr
- what does their spacing have to be
- how clean are the interconnects
- what is the quality of the cable
Im sure these questions are still keeping the Rainmaker folks awake at night.
Speaking of astronomy software, I spent a snowy weekend working on a JAVA version and have uploaded it to sourceforge. It runs both as an application and an applet and is hopefully truly portable. The code is GPLed and I wouldnt mind someone fixing it into a more usable application.
Please take a look at http://www.sf.net/projects/tara/
The best way of getting into astronomy is through your local club. There are several in the greater boston area so I imagine there must be a few where you are. Here is a link to one club listing
;-)).
:).
http://www.astromart.com/links.asp?c=1
Most clubs have observing places that you should visit on clear nights. Best way to make like-minded friends and get educated about equipment, etc (and to really find out if 'standing in one place in sub-freezing temperature for several hours in pitch dark' is your idea of fun
Once you get into it, you'll have more suggestions than you'll want and more equipment you'll want to purchase than your wallet can afford
PS: NH Astronomer Ed Ting has a great website reviewing telescopes http://www.scopereviews.com
And I dont mean that in a rhetorical sense. Very few people realise that while it is a 3rd world country and somewhat socialistic in its inclinations in the past, entrepreneurship is very active in day to day life. Companies like Infosys, Wipro and others were started by enterprising people in a political environment that sustained it.
China definitely has the talent and the schools to grow it. What china lacks is the personal and social freedom in day to day life. China could be a very prosperous nation if it became somewhat democratic.
I have two d-link DWL650s at home, one on a Win98 laptop and another on a Win2K. With both the laptops sitting side-by-side, about 30 feet from the Linksys WAP, the Win98 laptop had a strong signal (>80%) whereas the Win2k indicated a poor signal ( 0%). And yes, I did interchange the cards between the laptops.
Leads me to believe there is some software setting in the device driver.
I remember reading somewhere that fossil records show that there was a civilization the size of Europe stretching between Western India all the way to Iraq. The most well known records of this are the remains of the Indus Valley civilization (present day Pakistan).
Till this day there is no explanation for why cities and villages amounting to this size slowly disappeared. A meteor would explain a lot.
Nehru did a bit of research on this and has written about extensively in his book 'The discovery of India'. His thinking was some sort of floods may have caused this.
I bet you yours has a better price too...better for the 'its for the rest of us..' anyway.