First, when did I mention that gigabit would be enough for anybody? Second, I put a timeline on cat6 - 15 years. That means that I figure new installations will be rare in 10, semi-obsolete in 15, legacy in 20. Please note that I said 'unusably obsolete', this is a much different standard than 'don't need more'.
The simple fact is that if a couple of Gigs were available in most homes, then the apps would show up Cat6 will support 'a couple of gigs' rather easily.
As for my estimate, consider: 10base2 was designed in 1985. 10baseT was 1990. It is still used today, 17 years later, although rarely. 100BaseT came in 1995 - and still dominates the market 12 years later. 1999 saw the standard set for gigabit over copper - only in the last year or so have we seen the introduction of consumer level gigabit switches. Rather than buying gigabit switches people are buying 802.11 wireless products, mostly G* at this point (54 mbit half duplex MAX), combined with some vender specific dual channel stuff giving you 108mbit theoretical max, still half duplex.
So I think that a rough guess of 15 years before it becomes 'legacy'(IE support is rare, expensive, or unavailable), is not out of line.
*Draft N is faster in at least some conditions, but doesn't play as nicely with others nearby(dual channel operation, when there's only 3 nonoverlapping channels). This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't that I've only seen two products that take advantage of the fact that the draft N standard allows the usage of the 802.11a 5ghz channels.
Very true, however I've been talking in terms of maximum longevity - cat6 can ultimately support higher speeds than cat5e, but doesn't cost that much more. So if we're wiring a building at construction we're better off pulling cat6 over cat5e.
Maybe I should have said cat6 infrastructure and gigabit switches.
Anyways, while they have some funky connectors capable of allowing 10gbit over copper, I'm not so sure that we won't see an 'intermittent' step of something like 2-10gbit, or even a switch towards stuff like what's present on many home use long-haul circuits - they dynamically manage their transmission rates to maximize bandwidth while retaining the necessary signal to noise ratio - dirty circuit, you lose speed, not link.
So that cat5e link might get 1.2 gigabit, while that cat6 link gets 5gbit. That old cat5 run that hasn't been updated in decades gets 250 megabit, the really old cat3 hackjob that nobody's been able to come up with the money to replace gets 75mbit.
Standard ATSC HD streams are up to 19.3Mbps. A few of these can comfortably stream on a decent 100Mbps switch.
Thanks, I was looking for those figures, but couldn't find them, so I went off from some compressed video I have - it's 720p, and came out to be around 1megabit. Plenty of room to stream that, at least across a switched 10mbit network.
Hmmm... wiki lists ATSC as being able to carry 'several' video and audio streams, but that's probably at lower than maximum resolutions.
Given your example, yeah, you'd be able to use a 100mbit switch easily.
Heck, where I work we still had some users on a 10mbit hub - about a dozen of them. They rarely noticed. Meanwhile other areas were on gigabit, but the people on the hub were in a wierd location and their equipment was so old we didn't notice it for a while.
Until we start playing with 60fps 1080p editing studio quality video(1.5-3Gbit/s), we should be good with cat6 gigabit switches.
I think that a good clue about how much bandwidth is actually needed is that many people are perfectly happy with their 802.11g network. The category of people who would actually benefit from upgrading from 100mbit to gigabit for home use is actually quite limited. I don't really notice unless I'm trying to move gigabytes of data - and even that takes a chunk of time to move between hard drives.
Cable is already mostly digital, in many areas. Or were you thinking about the shutting off of analog broadcast TV that's happening in 2009?
Besides, shipping digital data over coax is not exactly unknown technology. modern technologies can have it carrying lots of digital technology, in that you can treat it like a whole range of RF channels - it'd be like transmitting on every channel available for 802.11a,g, and hundreds more*. It's kinda like increasing transmission over a single fiber by using lasers of varying frequency(color).
Besides, fiber requires a transmitter for every line - it's a star topology by default, not a bus like coax can be. That increases expense.
Fiber can beat coax in bandwidth - but you're talking some high end equipment to do it.
Doesn't mean that I don't think that they shouldn't be running fiber to the home though, preferably at least 8 pairs.
I'd rather just run a couple copper wires with the fiber if you want a combined power/information source. PoE is something of a hack. You'd be able to push more power with a couple of dedicated wires, for lower cost - simpler construction because you only need a couple wires even if you increase the gauge, don't need to twist them, etc...
As for the other poster, I've seen those connectors - complex and expensive looking even(especially?) compared with fiber connectors. After a certain point fiber IS cheaper than copper.
Though to be honest, wiring new houses with cat6 today would be cheap, you could have a little switching center in a closet somewhere to decide which ones are phone lines and which ones are data lines. Stick the networking hardware in there as well. Running it through conduit would increase cost, but allow relatively inexpensive upgrades(like if fiber to the desktop becomes common enough to be in houses).
Still, I'd estimate that cat6 won't be unusably obsolete to the desktop for ~15 years. Gigabit ethernet is fast enough to stream at least a compressed HDTV stream. Of course, you'd technically be able to run HDTV over a 10mbit connection by my calcs at least.
Hmmm... Looking up sleeper cars showed pictures without much privacy. Maybe have the cars able to act like a small stateroom, perhaps. I'm thinking something like a submarine captain's room.;)
A bed set at a height usable as a seat, fold down desk, storage under the bed for luggage. Maybe a folding bed or something.
Bunk beds is an idea, as would be quad rooms(for families). Though adjoining cabins is a thought as well.
Of course, I'm not a designer, so I'm sure there's many possible options. One problem might be the increase in average sizes - doors have to be wider today than they used to. A portion of handicapped accessible cabins would be a good idea.
Transfers, while they suck, are a fact of life for most air travel unless you're lucky enough to live in a hub city.
There's nothing preventing us from negotiating a sort of 'open passage' treaty for the train route where passengers are pretty much considered to still be in the USA as long as they're in a train. You need that stuff for driving because it's so easy to deviate from the route. Heck, run it underwater if you want to. Yes, that's a pipe dream.;)
People can find easier illegal means of entry into Canada than trying to jump a 300mph train. I could have said up to Washington, but thought 'Eh, might as well run it up to Anchorage.'
Honestly enough, that particular section of line wouldn't have much priority until we've exhausted many other areas promising more passanger trips per mile*. It's just like in the early days of railroad, I figure we want to kinda 'box' the USA - at least one north south line each for the east and west coasts, and two transcontinentals. That gives you a good base to expand on.
Keep the trains short - more trains rather than bigger ones. That allows you to run more frequent trains to more nonstop locations, helping to reduce the drastic impact frequent stops have on mass transit speeds.
*IE take a given proposed run, figure out how many trips you'll expect over it, divide by the number of miles the run would be. Highest numbers get built first. Keep in mind that the bigger the network, the more places you can get to from a given station the more people will travel. Linking NYC to Atlanta or Atlanta to Miami* will get you passangers, but build both, interconnected, and you'll get even more passangers. Of course, Disney would probably pay to have a stop in Orlando for Disneyworld, but that's all to the good.
There is a beach here in Seattle with some tracks nearby, and there is a fairly ominous sign about how many people have been killed there because they tried to cross them and didn't hear the freight train around the corner.
Makes me wonder why they don't put up a section of fence as well.
I don't think you know much about what happened, or even been near a modern rail system.
I'd have to agree. If the train tracks south of my house that I cross going to work were laid after the 40's I'd be surprised.
First of all, the bombs were in backpacks, left inside the trains. The rails had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Isn't this agreeing with my statement: 'Realistically speaking, they could have done the same thing in a crowded mall for the same effect.'?
What I'm worried about is terrorists doing something to derail a 300mph train, as if they manage it they'd probably kill just about everybody aboard. No, they probably won't be able to run it into an important building, but a crowded train with 90% fatalities would be bad enough.
Second, nobody "wanders" in front of a train and gets smeared.
They do it trying to beat the train(often driving around barriers to do it), make a wrong turn, sleep on the tracks, commit suicide(it's so bad that in Japan the train company charges the family clean up costs), etc...
We don't live inside a Roadrunner cartoon, tracks are very obvious and at least in populated places have barriers around them. You don't exactly end up on one by accident.
I must have never lived in a crowded enough area. Even when I lived in moderately sized cities I could walk over many active train tracks. I also have pretty high faith in drunks being able to darwin themselves in elaborate fashions.
Maybe, Maybe not - there has to be a market willing to buy it, after all.
You don't have to worry about backing them up.
I don't have to worry about that with webscriptions though, as I can redownload from them anytime, all I need to do is login.
If you lose them in a fire or your house gets robbed, your insurance will cover their loss.
At least with webscriptions - your account takes care of this. They can't exactly steal them. If they get the device that the books are on, you redownload the books onto the replacement item. Insurance should cover the cost of the reader, just like they'd pay for a TV.
And, at least for my books, I have them because I value them over the money I'd get selling them; many are effectively irreplacable at this point. Out of print, out of publishing, and even on the internet copies aren't always available.
You don't have to buy a new reader every 5 years because your old one broke down. There are many problems about the eBook that have not been solved yet.
I can't claim any knowledge as to the durability of any given reader. Still, in five years you'll probably be able to get a better reader at half the price. The kindle has 256 MB of memory, 60MB of which are taken up by the OS. Less than a megabyte per book at their '200 books' quote, but a quick average of my compressed ebooks have them at a half meg each.
On the other hand, there are advantages to an electronic reader - Space: think about how much space 200 books would take up - even paperbacks. Figure each book is 3/4" thick, that's 12.5 feet of shelving you're going to need. Not to mention that you'll want to keep track of them. Readability: Hard of vision? It's harder to scale up a paperback using portable equipment than simply setting font size larger on the device or even obtaining a device with a larger screen if necessary. Portability: These devices loose against a single book, sure. As long as the book's a paperback. But it can hold so much more. Think about your average hardback textbook - the Kindle, which is larger than some of it's competitors, is much thinner and lighter. And the game is all over if you're looking at multiple books. I can go through three books in a day when I'm traveling - a device like this would be a smaller, lighter load. Findability: Everything is automatically sorted! No chance of misplacing a book(just the device, I know, but it's a lot easier to keep track of 1 device than 200 books). Looking for a specific quote/scene, but only remember a fragment? Find is your friend.
To sum it up, I think that these devices have the power to take over the market like MP3 players have - by your arguement we'd still be using CDs rather than iTunes and it's competitors.
It's more difficult, of course. You still needed a player for those items, and relatively easy means exist to transfer music from CD or even tape into a format the player can use. It's a little more difficult with optically read books - OCR, especially for a book, isn't as automated. Books don't need power, at all.
Still, I've been finding that I enjoy online services. I've bought hundreds of books through webscriptions, I'm to the point that I look for an online provider before hitting the store up for a game - I like not having to fart around and try to find the game disc. I've worked through three different services(Steam, Stardock, and EA). I'd love to see a movie service coupled with a Tivo type device* - I purchase movies, which are transfered to the device, and I can watch movies at any time. It'd currently be out of my price range - but movies are about the most storage/bandwidth intensive media out there. As storage becomes cheaper, it'll become more reasonable as well. I like the idea behind it because then I wouldn't have to have a case full of movies that I have to sort through when I want to watch something. If the movie isn't cached on the d
Though I'll admit to considering it as long as I can transfer my webscription ebooks to it.
*Yes, they advertise "New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise." The whole 'unless marked otherwise' is real assuring. Besides, I don't normally read best sellers, and pay less than $10/book.
The madrid bombings didn't take out a whole train - killing most of the passangers. Realistically speaking, they could have done the same thing in a crowded mall for the same effect.
I said we have to be careful. By spending a little effort in designing security for the tracks now rather than later, we not only make it harder for the terrorists but also keep people from wandering in front of the train and getting smeared.
Please note that I'm overall optimistic about the system.
Though I think HSR should be for high volume corridors, there's still the 'last mile' travel options to consider - I'd like to see PRT myself for intracity travel. Heck, for off the beaten path travel between cities and towns as well - If we're not going to run maglev to the middle to small cities due to expense and low volume, run PRT there, they take that to the maglev station, then catch a PRT car to their final destination. No car/taxi required.
Maybe for a standard train, but I'd imagine that these high speed ones would be somewhat like an airplane - the majority of your luggage is stored seperatly. Even the trip might not be shorter - you wouldn't have stations left and right, and a semi-logical place to put the station would be around the airport.
Then again, they could go the bus route or have compartments where you put the luggage inside the train. Eh, whatever, there's many possibilities.
You could have a lot more entrances, that would speed loading up.
while for a train you could simply arrive 10 minutes before departure, wave a ticket at somebody or some device, and be ready for travel. For commuters with a carryon this could be true. For people traveling with heavy bags, not so much. Still better than the airport situation.
Even if there was a maglev from NY to LA, it would still take a day to get there at full speed - for probably no less than a flight
Actually, it'd be slower. NY to LA seems to be a 7-8 hour flight, it'd be 8 hours @300mph as the crow flighs. Since rail can't be that straight through the real world, I'd figure on 12-16 hours.
Still, if you can offer sleeper/dining cars for the same ticket price, the sheer luxury available to rail over flying would get you passangers.
Yes, you'd probably still have to process a lot like at an airport - a derailment, especially at those speeds is not nice either, though one of the maglev designs looks pretty tough to derail. With a maglev, track damage(as long as the debris is cleared) seems more likely to be skipped over as compared to rail damage. You'd have to blow a big chunck of track to derail one. Heck - here's a thought only available to trains - put the baggage cars at the back. That way any bomb detonations would be after the people are past.
You'd still have to worry about security though. At least a plane at altitude is very hard to shoot down. So unless you manage to plant a terrorist or bomb on the plane it's safe until landing approach.
With the train you could place a bomb of sufficient size anywhere along the tracks set to detonate at the right time to take out the train. Not saying this can't be solved, but we do have to be careful.
Still, I think that it'd be an excellent idea, especially if you relax baggage restrictions as compared to a plane as well.
I could see it going like this: I'll pick a presumably high volume route, NYC to LAX. Cost: About the same.
Seating: Well, almost all of us should be familiar with airline seating. Not being huge(fat or otherwise), I'm OK with economy seating, but it doesn't recline as much as I'd like. With a train though, they could more easily give 'first class' seats to everybody. In addition, I'd imagine seeing the return of the sleeper and dining cars. Imagine, rather than having 3 choices of meal that are all pretty terrible, having an actual menu. And after your dinner you retire to a sleeper car and get a good night's sleep while you travel. Wake up, have a nice breakfast and read the paper until you arrive. Advantage: Train, as long as they're smart.
Duration: NYC to LAX is 7 to 8 hours, with one stop. At 300mph, a train would be able to make a straightline distance in ~8 hours, nonstop. Assuming some stops, and the fact that a straightline track between the two locations is rather unlikely, I'll guess it'd be more along the line of 12-16 hours. Advantage: Plane, barely. Overnight train with sleeper cars (and waiting private showers at the train station) would beat it in convenience.
Baggage: Train should be able to relax baggage limits quite a bit. Advantage Train
Given that NYC to LAX would be about a worst case scenario, I could see high speed rail from NYC to Miami, Alaska to California, and at least a couple cross continent passing through places like Dallas, Denver, and Chicago. For one thing if used it'd take a lot of pressure off our airport runways.
Heck, get it good enough and to enough places I could see running cargo over them as well as people - if it's cheaper than air, UPS, Fedex and all them will jump on. Get some trucks off the road.
Though in the article, looking at the map, I can see that we're probably in need of some standardization - it doesn't help cross country travel by rail if they're all incompatible.
Was this study adjusted for age-related migration?
From what I remember, yes, and it also controlled for migration in that it only looked at people who'd spent at least the majority of their lives there. The 'low radiation' state wasn't Arizona or Florida, I think that it was Mississipi.
They've also done studies with airline attendants. While there are a couple studies showing them at higher risk for breast cancer, at least this study acknowledges that radiation might not be the cause, it seems to blame tobacco smoke more, as breast cancer is more associated with smoking than radiation.
When it comes down to it, airline attendants(and pilots) have a whole slew of different factors affecting them - increased jet exhaust, more exposure to different localities, disrupted sleep patterns, etc... Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to find that, at least in the 70s and 80s, the type of people who became attendents were also more likely to smoke.
Here's a study that suggests that background radiation is good for health.
Of course, there's also a rebuttal, which only goes to show that, sadly, the experimental model is still one of the best ways to prove something. The sadly part is that we can't ethically do actual testing, like having a massive study with like 100k people, sorting them into groups(including a control)and give out low to moderate levels radiation exposure each year. Then track cancer and illness rates. I feel like I'm caught in a pinch here - the study could help mankind, but hurt individual members of the study.
First, I'm sorry for your loss, but nobody's saying that radiation isn't dangerous - just that it's not as dangerous as people make it out to be.
It'd be like saying 'You're 200% likelier to die of lung cancer if you smoke', then researchers come out and say 'No, it's only 100%'. Keep in mind that it's still the worst nuclear power* disaster in history.
In the ensuing decades, up to 4,000 cleanup workers and residents of the more highly contaminated areas died of the long-term consequences of radiation exposure.
4k deaths isn't exactly small, but to put it into perspective, Bhopal, a chemical disaster, killed just as many in a far shorter period of time, and the land involved is still contaminated, much like Chernobyl.
Yes, there were many other illnesses. You can get the same stuff with chemical contamination as well. The trick is to be sane about dangers - IE don't let dangerous substances out into the environment.
*Heck, the reactor was used for plutonium breeding purposes for weapons processing, so you could technically put it into the weapons category - responsible for the vast majority of radioactive pollution in the world today.
It'd be interesting to look at the study more closely, rather than a reporter created extract.
Still, we have populations that weren't exposed to the radiation, yet have similar genetics and lifestyles. While levels of exposure can only be estimated at this point, I figure the easiest way to figure out the amount of cancer caused by the bombings(or other exposures) would be to figure out how many cancers you would expect in a population the size of your sample, then subtract them out to get the excess.
IE if you have 100k 'exposed' people, you separate look at similar age groups and come up with 'We'd expect 48 cases of leukemia, but got 135, so we're going to blame ~87 on the bomb'.
Of course, these sorts of studies have some problems - they've studies areas with high background radiation like Colorado and found that they have lower cancer rates than areas with low background radiation.
Makes sense, the testes has some of the fastest reproducing cells in the human body - and we use radiation to treat cancer, which kills vulnerable fissioning cells much quicker than cells not undergoing mitosis.
I know this as it happened to my uncle. Who knows what other diseases might show up that don't necessarily produce immediate death.
True, but we've had 60 years to study the issue, and mostly the results are that some radioactive materials(like iodine encourage cancers. Still, the current assumption of a linear harm equation hasn't borne out under scientific examination. It's ended up being like many other substances. Dosage is the key - minor dosages don't cause detectable amounts of harm, while a massive dose kills. Doses in between cause varying amounts of harm/sickness.
At least for Chernobyl, despite exposing thousands and careful tracking, with one exception cancer rates of those exposed are not statistically higher. The one exception is thyroid cancer due to the radioactive iodine which attacked a number of children. Fortunately the cancers turned out to be very treatable, so there were very few deaths from it.
Ironically enough, the major treatment for thyroid cancer is radioactive iodine.
I think your impression of cuffing someone is pretty optimistic. If someone really doesn't want to be cuffed, a second isn't enough time to do much of anything. If someone is really violent, you aren't going to cuff them until they are out of energy or can't think strait. (beware the biter)
Thus the reason for the taser - while it prevents all voluntary movement for only a short time, it also usually results in disorientation for a somewhat longer period where the suspect can't fight the arrest in a directed fashion.
I'm also figuring on multiple officers besides the taser user to perform the jerking. I'm also not planning on them being nice.
I think office workers should be video-tapeable, though that doesn't mean that anyone could just walk into their office. I think that if you have a meeting with a public official where they are acting as a public official, you should always be allowed to record your meeting. In cases where video would be a security concern, audio should be allowable.
I'm a little less for this - if nothing else, an office worker isn't out in the public and paper records exist for auditing positions. Office workers also aren't standardly called upon to commit acts of violence in enforcing the law. That's why we want public recordings of them - to be able to audit the violence in a field where lying is frequent and frequently practiced.
I think that if you have a meeting with a public official where they are acting as a public official, you should always be allowed to record your meeting.
Sure, recordings of public meetings aren't a bad idea - just remember privacy act concerns. Public officials are public, but occasionally they have to discuss private matters involving private citizens. Think of an interview with a rape victim - sure, record it, but the tape should be handled privately, and only released with the victim's permission.
In cases where video would be a security concern, audio should be allowable
In areas where video would be a security concern, audio is often just as bad. I'm thinking of classified stuff here.
On the other hand, tasers aren't as scary, and if you miss you're screwed. Chances are organizations have run the numbers to figure out which is safer. I suspect you're right that a gun is better, but I'd like to see some numbers to back it up.
Bingo. If nothing else, that's why the Mozambique drill exists - a third shot to the head, performed last, presumably when the perp would be closest to the officer. CNS hit generally equals instant stop - especially a 9mm or larger to the brain pan. In addition, a service gun will have anywhere between 4 and 12 shots left after the first three. Common calibers being 9mm(15-17), 40(10-12), and 45(7). Offtopic, this reminded me of one of the unintended consequences of the magazine restriction in the AWB - people started trading up in calibers - rather than carrying a 9mm around, they started carrying a.40. A.40 has a higher death rate than a 9mm. The average criminal shooting only involves 3 shots, so fatalities went up, because the average caliber went up.
What is your opinion on confiscating a recording, so that it can be used as evidence? If someone films a crime, or evidence to a crime, should the police have a right to demand the video immediately (so as to prevent tampering)?
Same rules as with confiscating other evidence for possible usage in a trial - if the person doesn't want to give it up voluntarily, it should require a warrant. Well, at least as long as they're not arresting the recorder/holder of the recording for a legitimate crime other than 'refusing to hand over recording'. Holding the person while a warrant is obtained(like they do for other stuff), is normally a reasonable compromise - obvious this must be done in an expeditious fashion. IE wake the judge up if necessary.
Depending upon the technology used to make the recording - making an
Once malware gets to run on your machine, you're screwed. Replicating the looks of a legitimate password prompt is possible and I dare say easy. It doesn't matter if it's the Ubuntu graphical sudo or the Vista UAC. Linux or Windows, luser or guru, you will definitely fall for a security prompt that looks just like the real thing.
I wasn't talking about a password prompt, necessarily. I was talking about a warning system that at least tries to only pop up when there's an increased danger. Social Engineering is actually the largest method of compromising systems today. And yet, especially with home machines you have 'standard users' that need to be able to install programs.
So the only real protection is not letting malware penetrate and run in the first place.
Duh.
Blacklisting obviously doesn't work (look at Windows), so antivirus, antispyware and the other similar "solutions" are out. I prefer blanket restrictions, such as noexec,nosuid,nodev flag combos on/home and other partitions, or whitelisting. May I say that with the latest version Mac OS X does a great job of combining such security techniques with transparence for the user.
And that stuff requires knowledge above and beyond the standard user. Antivirus/spyware programs are a fact of life and are at least discriminating compared to what I've heard of UAC. As a result, your standard user is far more likely to listen to their antivirus over the UAC.
You know, I'd like to see a study on that. I do know that all the fatalities I've heard about were with multiple/long shocks. I also know that there have been fatalities from more 'traditional' arrest methods - to include asphyxiation.
I'm pretty sure we only hear about the problems and abuses - making them seem more common than they actually are.
Unfortunately, I can't agree with you, as I've never heard of genes being found that are responsible for stupidity, tribalism, and free-riding. I'm afraid that I believe that our these traits are a very complex affair - tying into multiple genes(like skin&hair color), environment, diet, upbringing, culture, etc...
So we have to work with what we've got. Please note that I pointed out syndromes that can be traced, normally, to a single defective gene - resulting in traceable defective metabolic paths.
This ends up meaning that they can be found with relatively simple genetic screening of the population, and appropriate fetal/embryo testing is feasible.
I'm on the conservative end of things. KISS, at least for the first few generations.
For the ills you mention, well, it'd take a shift in government and culture.
While I didn't bother to quote the sites, I've seen a number of reviews that indeed said 32bit was faster. I don't exactly do a huge amound of encryption/decryption, games are my biggest performance software.
They probably have improved the gap quite a bit; still, I like being behind the curve a bit; it tends to be cheaper, stabler, and there's more support available.
Finally there's the little issue that I had a copy of XP32 bit, and not one of 64 bit.
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First, when did I mention that gigabit would be enough for anybody?
Second, I put a timeline on cat6 - 15 years. That means that I figure new installations will be rare in 10, semi-obsolete in 15, legacy in 20. Please note that I said 'unusably obsolete', this is a much different standard than 'don't need more'.
The simple fact is that if a couple of Gigs were available in most homes, then the apps would show up
Cat6 will support 'a couple of gigs' rather easily.
As for my estimate, consider: 10base2 was designed in 1985. 10baseT was 1990. It is still used today, 17 years later, although rarely. 100BaseT came in 1995 - and still dominates the market 12 years later. 1999 saw the standard set for gigabit over copper - only in the last year or so have we seen the introduction of consumer level gigabit switches. Rather than buying gigabit switches people are buying 802.11 wireless products, mostly G* at this point (54 mbit half duplex MAX), combined with some vender specific dual channel stuff giving you 108mbit theoretical max, still half duplex.
So I think that a rough guess of 15 years before it becomes 'legacy'(IE support is rare, expensive, or unavailable), is not out of line.
*Draft N is faster in at least some conditions, but doesn't play as nicely with others nearby(dual channel operation, when there's only 3 nonoverlapping channels). This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't that I've only seen two products that take advantage of the fact that the draft N standard allows the usage of the 802.11a 5ghz channels.
Very true, however I've been talking in terms of maximum longevity - cat6 can ultimately support higher speeds than cat5e, but doesn't cost that much more. So if we're wiring a building at construction we're better off pulling cat6 over cat5e.
Maybe I should have said cat6 infrastructure and gigabit switches.
Anyways, while they have some funky connectors capable of allowing 10gbit over copper, I'm not so sure that we won't see an 'intermittent' step of something like 2-10gbit, or even a switch towards stuff like what's present on many home use long-haul circuits - they dynamically manage their transmission rates to maximize bandwidth while retaining the necessary signal to noise ratio - dirty circuit, you lose speed, not link.
So that cat5e link might get 1.2 gigabit, while that cat6 link gets 5gbit. That old cat5 run that hasn't been updated in decades gets 250 megabit, the really old cat3 hackjob that nobody's been able to come up with the money to replace gets 75mbit.
Standard ATSC HD streams are up to 19.3Mbps. A few of these can comfortably stream on a decent 100Mbps switch.
Thanks, I was looking for those figures, but couldn't find them, so I went off from some compressed video I have - it's 720p, and came out to be around 1megabit. Plenty of room to stream that, at least across a switched 10mbit network.
Hmmm... wiki lists ATSC as being able to carry 'several' video and audio streams, but that's probably at lower than maximum resolutions.
Given your example, yeah, you'd be able to use a 100mbit switch easily.
Heck, where I work we still had some users on a 10mbit hub - about a dozen of them. They rarely noticed. Meanwhile other areas were on gigabit, but the people on the hub were in a wierd location and their equipment was so old we didn't notice it for a while.
Until we start playing with 60fps 1080p editing studio quality video(1.5-3Gbit/s), we should be good with cat6 gigabit switches.
I think that a good clue about how much bandwidth is actually needed is that many people are perfectly happy with their 802.11g network. The category of people who would actually benefit from upgrading from 100mbit to gigabit for home use is actually quite limited. I don't really notice unless I'm trying to move gigabytes of data - and even that takes a chunk of time to move between hard drives.
Cable is already mostly digital, in many areas. Or were you thinking about the shutting off of analog broadcast TV that's happening in 2009?
Besides, shipping digital data over coax is not exactly unknown technology. modern technologies can have it carrying lots of digital technology, in that you can treat it like a whole range of RF channels - it'd be like transmitting on every channel available for 802.11a,g, and hundreds more*. It's kinda like increasing transmission over a single fiber by using lasers of varying frequency(color).
Besides, fiber requires a transmitter for every line - it's a star topology by default, not a bus like coax can be. That increases expense.
Fiber can beat coax in bandwidth - but you're talking some high end equipment to do it.
Doesn't mean that I don't think that they shouldn't be running fiber to the home though, preferably at least 8 pairs.
*Vast simplification.
I'd rather just run a couple copper wires with the fiber if you want a combined power/information source. PoE is something of a hack. You'd be able to push more power with a couple of dedicated wires, for lower cost - simpler construction because you only need a couple wires even if you increase the gauge, don't need to twist them, etc...
As for the other poster, I've seen those connectors - complex and expensive looking even(especially?) compared with fiber connectors. After a certain point fiber IS cheaper than copper.
Though to be honest, wiring new houses with cat6 today would be cheap, you could have a little switching center in a closet somewhere to decide which ones are phone lines and which ones are data lines. Stick the networking hardware in there as well. Running it through conduit would increase cost, but allow relatively inexpensive upgrades(like if fiber to the desktop becomes common enough to be in houses).
Still, I'd estimate that cat6 won't be unusably obsolete to the desktop for ~15 years. Gigabit ethernet is fast enough to stream at least a compressed HDTV stream. Of course, you'd technically be able to run HDTV over a 10mbit connection by my calcs at least.
Hmmm... Looking up sleeper cars showed pictures without much privacy. Maybe have the cars able to act like a small stateroom, perhaps. I'm thinking something like a submarine captain's room. ;)
A bed set at a height usable as a seat, fold down desk, storage under the bed for luggage. Maybe a folding bed or something.
Bunk beds is an idea, as would be quad rooms(for families). Though adjoining cabins is a thought as well.
Of course, I'm not a designer, so I'm sure there's many possible options. One problem might be the increase in average sizes - doors have to be wider today than they used to. A portion of handicapped accessible cabins would be a good idea.
Transfers, while they suck, are a fact of life for most air travel unless you're lucky enough to live in a hub city.
There's nothing preventing us from negotiating a sort of 'open passage' treaty for the train route where passengers are pretty much considered to still be in the USA as long as they're in a train. You need that stuff for driving because it's so easy to deviate from the route. Heck, run it underwater if you want to. Yes, that's a pipe dream. ;)
People can find easier illegal means of entry into Canada than trying to jump a 300mph train. I could have said up to Washington, but thought 'Eh, might as well run it up to Anchorage.'
Honestly enough, that particular section of line wouldn't have much priority until we've exhausted many other areas promising more passanger trips per mile*. It's just like in the early days of railroad, I figure we want to kinda 'box' the USA - at least one north south line each for the east and west coasts, and two transcontinentals. That gives you a good base to expand on.
Keep the trains short - more trains rather than bigger ones. That allows you to run more frequent trains to more nonstop locations, helping to reduce the drastic impact frequent stops have on mass transit speeds.
*IE take a given proposed run, figure out how many trips you'll expect over it, divide by the number of miles the run would be. Highest numbers get built first. Keep in mind that the bigger the network, the more places you can get to from a given station the more people will travel. Linking NYC to Atlanta or Atlanta to Miami* will get you passangers, but build both, interconnected, and you'll get even more passangers. Of course, Disney would probably pay to have a stop in Orlando for Disneyworld, but that's all to the good.
There is a beach here in Seattle with some tracks nearby, and there is a fairly ominous sign about how many people have been killed there because they tried to cross them and didn't hear the freight train around the corner.
Makes me wonder why they don't put up a section of fence as well.
I don't think you know much about what happened, or even been near a modern rail system.
I'd have to agree. If the train tracks south of my house that I cross going to work were laid after the 40's I'd be surprised.
First of all, the bombs were in backpacks, left inside the trains. The rails had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Isn't this agreeing with my statement: 'Realistically speaking, they could have done the same thing in a crowded mall for the same effect.'?
What I'm worried about is terrorists doing something to derail a 300mph train, as if they manage it they'd probably kill just about everybody aboard. No, they probably won't be able to run it into an important building, but a crowded train with 90% fatalities would be bad enough.
Second, nobody "wanders" in front of a train and gets smeared.
Sure about that?
They do it trying to beat the train(often driving around barriers to do it), make a wrong turn, sleep on the tracks, commit suicide(it's so bad that in Japan the train company charges the family clean up costs), etc...
We don't live inside a Roadrunner cartoon, tracks are very obvious and at least in populated places have barriers around them. You don't exactly end up on one by accident.
I must have never lived in a crowded enough area. Even when I lived in moderately sized cities I could walk over many active train tracks. I also have pretty high faith in drunks being able to darwin themselves in elaborate fashions.
With paper books, you can resell them easily.
Maybe, Maybe not - there has to be a market willing to buy it, after all.
You don't have to worry about backing them up.
I don't have to worry about that with webscriptions though, as I can redownload from them anytime, all I need to do is login.
If you lose them in a fire or your house gets robbed, your insurance will cover their loss.
At least with webscriptions - your account takes care of this. They can't exactly steal them. If they get the device that the books are on, you redownload the books onto the replacement item. Insurance should cover the cost of the reader, just like they'd pay for a TV.
And, at least for my books, I have them because I value them over the money I'd get selling them; many are effectively irreplacable at this point. Out of print, out of publishing, and even on the internet copies aren't always available.
You don't have to buy a new reader every 5 years because your old one broke down. There are many problems about the eBook that have not been solved yet.
I can't claim any knowledge as to the durability of any given reader. Still, in five years you'll probably be able to get a better reader at half the price. The kindle has 256 MB of memory, 60MB of which are taken up by the OS. Less than a megabyte per book at their '200 books' quote, but a quick average of my compressed ebooks have them at a half meg each.
On the other hand, there are advantages to an electronic reader -
Space: think about how much space 200 books would take up - even paperbacks. Figure each book is 3/4" thick, that's 12.5 feet of shelving you're going to need. Not to mention that you'll want to keep track of them.
Readability: Hard of vision? It's harder to scale up a paperback using portable equipment than simply setting font size larger on the device or even obtaining a device with a larger screen if necessary.
Portability: These devices loose against a single book, sure. As long as the book's a paperback. But it can hold so much more. Think about your average hardback textbook - the Kindle, which is larger than some of it's competitors, is much thinner and lighter. And the game is all over if you're looking at multiple books. I can go through three books in a day when I'm traveling - a device like this would be a smaller, lighter load.
Findability: Everything is automatically sorted! No chance of misplacing a book(just the device, I know, but it's a lot easier to keep track of 1 device than 200 books). Looking for a specific quote/scene, but only remember a fragment? Find is your friend.
To sum it up, I think that these devices have the power to take over the market like MP3 players have - by your arguement we'd still be using CDs rather than iTunes and it's competitors.
It's more difficult, of course. You still needed a player for those items, and relatively easy means exist to transfer music from CD or even tape into a format the player can use. It's a little more difficult with optically read books - OCR, especially for a book, isn't as automated. Books don't need power, at all.
Still, I've been finding that I enjoy online services. I've bought hundreds of books through webscriptions, I'm to the point that I look for an online provider before hitting the store up for a game - I like not having to fart around and try to find the game disc. I've worked through three different services(Steam, Stardock, and EA). I'd love to see a movie service coupled with a Tivo type device* - I purchase movies, which are transfered to the device, and I can watch movies at any time. It'd currently be out of my price range - but movies are about the most storage/bandwidth intensive media out there. As storage becomes cheaper, it'll become more reasonable as well. I like the idea behind it because then I wouldn't have to have a case full of movies that I have to sort through when I want to watch something. If the movie isn't cached on the d
Personally I'd read a lot more ebooks if more ebooks were available without the restrictive DRM and hardcover prices as compared to paperbacks.
I'm not going spend $400 and $20/book*.
Though I'll admit to considering it as long as I can transfer my webscription ebooks to it.
*Yes, they advertise "New York Times® Best Sellers and all New Releases $9.99, unless marked otherwise." The whole 'unless marked otherwise' is real assuring. Besides, I don't normally read best sellers, and pay less than $10/book.
The madrid bombings didn't take out a whole train - killing most of the passangers. Realistically speaking, they could have done the same thing in a crowded mall for the same effect.
I said we have to be careful. By spending a little effort in designing security for the tracks now rather than later, we not only make it harder for the terrorists but also keep people from wandering in front of the train and getting smeared.
Please note that I'm overall optimistic about the system.
Though I think HSR should be for high volume corridors, there's still the 'last mile' travel options to consider - I'd like to see PRT myself for intracity travel. Heck, for off the beaten path travel between cities and towns as well - If we're not going to run maglev to the middle to small cities due to expense and low volume, run PRT there, they take that to the maglev station, then catch a PRT car to their final destination. No car/taxi required.
Maybe for a standard train, but I'd imagine that these high speed ones would be somewhat like an airplane - the majority of your luggage is stored seperatly. Even the trip might not be shorter - you wouldn't have stations left and right, and a semi-logical place to put the station would be around the airport.
Then again, they could go the bus route or have compartments where you put the luggage inside the train. Eh, whatever, there's many possibilities.
You could have a lot more entrances, that would speed loading up.
while for a train you could simply arrive 10 minutes before departure, wave a ticket at somebody or some device, and be ready for travel.
For commuters with a carryon this could be true. For people traveling with heavy bags, not so much. Still better than the airport situation.
Even if there was a maglev from NY to LA, it would still take a day to get there at full speed - for probably no less than a flight
Actually, it'd be slower. NY to LA seems to be a 7-8 hour flight, it'd be 8 hours @300mph as the crow flighs. Since rail can't be that straight through the real world, I'd figure on 12-16 hours.
Still, if you can offer sleeper/dining cars for the same ticket price, the sheer luxury available to rail over flying would get you passangers.
Yes, you'd probably still have to process a lot like at an airport - a derailment, especially at those speeds is not nice either, though one of the maglev designs looks pretty tough to derail. With a maglev, track damage(as long as the debris is cleared) seems more likely to be skipped over as compared to rail damage. You'd have to blow a big chunck of track to derail one. Heck - here's a thought only available to trains - put the baggage cars at the back. That way any bomb detonations would be after the people are past.
You'd still have to worry about security though. At least a plane at altitude is very hard to shoot down. So unless you manage to plant a terrorist or bomb on the plane it's safe until landing approach.
With the train you could place a bomb of sufficient size anywhere along the tracks set to detonate at the right time to take out the train. Not saying this can't be solved, but we do have to be careful.
Still, I think that it'd be an excellent idea, especially if you relax baggage restrictions as compared to a plane as well.
I could see it going like this:
I'll pick a presumably high volume route, NYC to LAX.
Cost: About the same.
Seating: Well, almost all of us should be familiar with airline seating. Not being huge(fat or otherwise), I'm OK with economy seating, but it doesn't recline as much as I'd like. With a train though, they could more easily give 'first class' seats to everybody. In addition, I'd imagine seeing the return of the sleeper and dining cars. Imagine, rather than having 3 choices of meal that are all pretty terrible, having an actual menu. And after your dinner you retire to a sleeper car and get a good night's sleep while you travel. Wake up, have a nice breakfast and read the paper until you arrive. Advantage: Train, as long as they're smart.
Duration: NYC to LAX is 7 to 8 hours, with one stop. At 300mph, a train would be able to make a straightline distance in ~8 hours, nonstop. Assuming some stops, and the fact that a straightline track between the two locations is rather unlikely, I'll guess it'd be more along the line of 12-16 hours. Advantage: Plane, barely. Overnight train with sleeper cars (and waiting private showers at the train station) would beat it in convenience.
Baggage: Train should be able to relax baggage limits quite a bit. Advantage Train
Given that NYC to LAX would be about a worst case scenario, I could see high speed rail from NYC to Miami, Alaska to California, and at least a couple cross continent passing through places like Dallas, Denver, and Chicago. For one thing if used it'd take a lot of pressure off our airport runways.
Heck, get it good enough and to enough places I could see running cargo over them as well as people - if it's cheaper than air, UPS, Fedex and all them will jump on. Get some trucks off the road.
Though in the article, looking at the map, I can see that we're probably in need of some standardization - it doesn't help cross country travel by rail if they're all incompatible.
Was this study adjusted for age-related migration?
From what I remember, yes, and it also controlled for migration in that it only looked at people who'd spent at least the majority of their lives there. The 'low radiation' state wasn't Arizona or Florida, I think that it was Mississipi.
They've also done studies with airline attendants. While there are a couple studies showing them at higher risk for breast cancer, at least this study acknowledges that radiation might not be the cause, it seems to blame tobacco smoke more, as breast cancer is more associated with smoking than radiation.
When it comes down to it, airline attendants(and pilots) have a whole slew of different factors affecting them - increased jet exhaust, more exposure to different localities, disrupted sleep patterns, etc... Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to find that, at least in the 70s and 80s, the type of people who became attendents were also more likely to smoke.
Here's a study that suggests that background radiation is good for health.
Of course, there's also a rebuttal, which only goes to show that, sadly, the experimental model is still one of the best ways to prove something. The sadly part is that we can't ethically do actual testing, like having a massive study with like 100k people, sorting them into groups(including a control)and give out low to moderate levels radiation exposure each year. Then track cancer and illness rates. I feel like I'm caught in a pinch here - the study could help mankind, but hurt individual members of the study.
First, I'm sorry for your loss, but nobody's saying that radiation isn't dangerous - just that it's not as dangerous as people make it out to be.
It'd be like saying 'You're 200% likelier to die of lung cancer if you smoke', then researchers come out and say 'No, it's only 100%'. Keep in mind that it's still the worst nuclear power* disaster in history.
In the ensuing decades, up to 4,000 cleanup workers and residents of the more highly contaminated areas died of the long-term consequences of radiation exposure.
4k deaths isn't exactly small, but to put it into perspective, Bhopal, a chemical disaster, killed just as many in a far shorter period of time, and the land involved is still contaminated, much like Chernobyl.
Yes, there were many other illnesses. You can get the same stuff with chemical contamination as well. The trick is to be sane about dangers - IE don't let dangerous substances out into the environment.
*Heck, the reactor was used for plutonium breeding purposes for weapons processing, so you could technically put it into the weapons category - responsible for the vast majority of radioactive pollution in the world today.
It'd be interesting to look at the study more closely, rather than a reporter created extract.
Still, we have populations that weren't exposed to the radiation, yet have similar genetics and lifestyles. While levels of exposure can only be estimated at this point, I figure the easiest way to figure out the amount of cancer caused by the bombings(or other exposures) would be to figure out how many cancers you would expect in a population the size of your sample, then subtract them out to get the excess.
IE if you have 100k 'exposed' people, you separate look at similar age groups and come up with 'We'd expect 48 cases of leukemia, but got 135, so we're going to blame ~87 on the bomb'.
Of course, these sorts of studies have some problems - they've studies areas with high background radiation like Colorado and found that they have lower cancer rates than areas with low background radiation.
Nuclear radiation will produce sterility in men.
Makes sense, the testes has some of the fastest reproducing cells in the human body - and we use radiation to treat cancer, which kills vulnerable fissioning cells much quicker than cells not undergoing mitosis.
I know this as it happened to my uncle. Who knows what other diseases might show up that don't necessarily produce immediate death.
True, but we've had 60 years to study the issue, and mostly the results are that some radioactive materials(like iodine encourage cancers. Still, the current assumption of a linear harm equation hasn't borne out under scientific examination. It's ended up being like many other substances. Dosage is the key - minor dosages don't cause detectable amounts of harm, while a massive dose kills. Doses in between cause varying amounts of harm/sickness.
At least for Chernobyl, despite exposing thousands and careful tracking, with one exception cancer rates of those exposed are not statistically higher. The one exception is thyroid cancer due to the radioactive iodine which attacked a number of children. Fortunately the cancers turned out to be very treatable, so there were very few deaths from it.
Ironically enough, the major treatment for thyroid cancer is radioactive iodine.
I think your impression of cuffing someone is pretty optimistic. If someone really doesn't want to be cuffed, a second isn't enough time to do much of anything. If someone is really violent, you aren't going to cuff them until they are out of energy or can't think strait. (beware the biter)
.40. A .40 has a higher death rate than a 9mm. The average criminal shooting only involves 3 shots, so fatalities went up, because the average caliber went up.
Thus the reason for the taser - while it prevents all voluntary movement for only a short time, it also usually results in disorientation for a somewhat longer period where the suspect can't fight the arrest in a directed fashion.
I'm also figuring on multiple officers besides the taser user to perform the jerking. I'm also not planning on them being nice.
I think office workers should be video-tapeable, though that doesn't mean that anyone could just walk into their office. I think that if you have a meeting with a public official where they are acting as a public official, you should always be allowed to record your meeting. In cases where video would be a security concern, audio should be allowable.
I'm a little less for this - if nothing else, an office worker isn't out in the public and paper records exist for auditing positions. Office workers also aren't standardly called upon to commit acts of violence in enforcing the law. That's why we want public recordings of them - to be able to audit the violence in a field where lying is frequent and frequently practiced.
I think that if you have a meeting with a public official where they are acting as a public official, you should always be allowed to record your meeting.
Sure, recordings of public meetings aren't a bad idea - just remember privacy act concerns. Public officials are public, but occasionally they have to discuss private matters involving private citizens. Think of an interview with a rape victim - sure, record it, but the tape should be handled privately, and only released with the victim's permission.
In cases where video would be a security concern, audio should be allowable
In areas where video would be a security concern, audio is often just as bad. I'm thinking of classified stuff here.
On the other hand, tasers aren't as scary, and if you miss you're screwed. Chances are organizations have run the numbers to figure out which is safer. I suspect you're right that a gun is better, but I'd like to see some numbers to back it up.
Bingo. If nothing else, that's why the Mozambique drill exists - a third shot to the head, performed last, presumably when the perp would be closest to the officer. CNS hit generally equals instant stop - especially a 9mm or larger to the brain pan. In addition, a service gun will have anywhere between 4 and 12 shots left after the first three. Common calibers being 9mm(15-17), 40(10-12), and 45(7). Offtopic, this reminded me of one of the unintended consequences of the magazine restriction in the AWB - people started trading up in calibers - rather than carrying a 9mm around, they started carrying a
What is your opinion on confiscating a recording, so that it can be used as evidence? If someone films a crime, or evidence to a crime, should the police have a right to demand the video immediately (so as to prevent tampering)?
Same rules as with confiscating other evidence for possible usage in a trial - if the person doesn't want to give it up voluntarily, it should require a warrant. Well, at least as long as they're not arresting the recorder/holder of the recording for a legitimate crime other than 'refusing to hand over recording'. Holding the person while a warrant is obtained(like they do for other stuff), is normally a reasonable compromise - obvious this must be done in an expeditious fashion. IE wake the judge up if necessary.
Depending upon the technology used to make the recording - making an
Once malware gets to run on your machine, you're screwed. Replicating the looks of a legitimate password prompt is possible and I dare say easy. It doesn't matter if it's the Ubuntu graphical sudo or the Vista UAC. Linux or Windows, luser or guru, you will definitely fall for a security prompt that looks just like the real thing.
/home and other partitions, or whitelisting. May I say that with the latest version Mac OS X does a great job of combining such security techniques with transparence for the user.
I wasn't talking about a password prompt, necessarily. I was talking about a warning system that at least tries to only pop up when there's an increased danger. Social Engineering is actually the largest method of compromising systems today. And yet, especially with home machines you have 'standard users' that need to be able to install programs.
So the only real protection is not letting malware penetrate and run in the first place.
Duh.
Blacklisting obviously doesn't work (look at Windows), so antivirus, antispyware and the other similar "solutions" are out. I prefer blanket restrictions, such as noexec,nosuid,nodev flag combos on
And that stuff requires knowledge above and beyond the standard user. Antivirus/spyware programs are a fact of life and are at least discriminating compared to what I've heard of UAC. As a result, your standard user is far more likely to listen to their antivirus over the UAC.
You know, I'd like to see a study on that. I do know that all the fatalities I've heard about were with multiple/long shocks. I also know that there have been fatalities from more 'traditional' arrest methods - to include asphyxiation.
I'm pretty sure we only hear about the problems and abuses - making them seem more common than they actually are.
Unfortunately, I can't agree with you, as I've never heard of genes being found that are responsible for stupidity, tribalism, and free-riding. I'm afraid that I believe that our these traits are a very complex affair - tying into multiple genes(like skin&hair color), environment, diet, upbringing, culture, etc...
So we have to work with what we've got. Please note that I pointed out syndromes that can be traced, normally, to a single defective gene - resulting in traceable defective metabolic paths.
This ends up meaning that they can be found with relatively simple genetic screening of the population, and appropriate fetal/embryo testing is feasible.
I'm on the conservative end of things. KISS, at least for the first few generations.
For the ills you mention, well, it'd take a shift in government and culture.
While I didn't bother to quote the sites, I've seen a number of reviews that indeed said 32bit was faster. I don't exactly do a huge amound of encryption/decryption, games are my biggest performance software.
They probably have improved the gap quite a bit; still, I like being behind the curve a bit; it tends to be cheaper, stabler, and there's more support available.
Finally there's the little issue that I had a copy of XP32 bit, and not one of 64 bit.
On the other hand, it seems pregnent women have a very wide choice of places to relieve themselves, to include a bobby's helmet.
'Excuse me sir, I require the use of your helmet for a minute...'
I heard on the radio a few times last week. Source