"It's possible that Harry Potter's invisibility cloak may not be viewed as a good thing for the community," said Kevin Kelly, an editor at Wired magazine. "We have laws prohibiting jamming police radar. It will be interesting to see if camera-jamming becomes illegal."
IANAL, but to answer Kevin Kelly's concerns about legality of laser jamming. His analogy with police radar has no prescedent. The police radar is governed by the FCC, and citizens aren't allowed to deliberately interefere with radio devices. However, lasers are governed by the FDA -- and jamming police laser (lidar, actually) is, and alwas has been completely legal (except in VA).
For more information, check this out. Its a laser jammer test, but has some information on the law of laser (lidar) jamming.
Disclaimer: radartest.com kind of sucks. It is not all objective and they're particularly biased against the Valentine Research manufacturer of radar locators due to a personal vendetta between the two companies' founders/owners.
This brings up a question I have had for a while. Assuming that a country doesn't want to follow the US in whatever ideal, what does the US govenment do to pressure that country into submission?
Politics, politics, politics, my friend.
The US can lean on countries using whatever power it has (it does/will do this). Fact is, the politics of the situation are not the savage, horrible thing that people are whining about, it seems like more of a political/diplomatic reality that has always gone on, that people are recently awaking to. (I'm going to go out on a limb here) It is a realization very similar to the US's young people lashing out because they discover that the "one man, one vote" mantra is bullshit -- its really "one man, one vote...but before that comes lots of campaign financing, handshaking, and lobbying". Its nothing new -- its the way its always worked...people just weren't completely aware...
The US will use any means at its disposal for leverage, be it foreign aid, tariffs on imports/exports, military power/placement, embargos, control of shipping channels & oil pipelines, land, as well as its powerful positions in the UN. The US is having a related (UN) problem right now with Russia and China. Russia and China have veto power in the UN Security Council, and if the politics aren't played right, they will certainly veto any UN-endorsed action against Iraq. The US was able to gain the support of Russia by negotiating the control and security of the Russian/Iraqi oil fields. Is it an insidous process? I don't think so...I think that its the way the game is played. It just happens that the US gets to play the game with a really good hand (and its not like that great hand was just given to the Americans for nothing, which is what the rest of the world seems to believe).
Look at any US foreign policy deal in the past two centuries. You will find that there was give and take on all sides, and each country used whatever pressure it could to negotiate whatever deal that was being made.
--Turkey
Typical bait and switch
on
Honest Job Sites?
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Its getting pretty typical for hearhunters to do a bait and switch on the postings. Since September, 2001, its been getting worse and worse. Jobs are listed on Dice with outlandishly high salaries (for what they are), just so a headhunter can increase their resume-base. I've called on a number of those hours after they were posted, and I get "Oh, that position is no longer available, but what about this other horrible job?"
Its horribly dishonest, and I've had better results from a local paper every time. I've also seen pretty good results from net-temps, although I haven't looked there in months.
I've never tried this, but I've thought about it on more than one occasion. Maybe you should try putting NetBSD/hpcMIPS on a handheld PC device. Compile Apache, PERL, whatever. Buy a 256MB flashcard and serve off of there. If you're weary of flashcards, try a microdrive (more space, less price). In any case, these devices should use less wattage than a laptop, and they are available on eBay for cheap (check out the IBM z50 -- its what most people seem to use with NetBSD/hpcMIPS). Just don't go serving any heavy traffic:)
but here, SurfControl has essentially slandered the site by calling it a hate site.
Not to be too picky about this (and I agree with your statement), but technically, SurfControl's false statements about the Libertartarian Party are more likely libel than slander. Slander is spoken, libel is written. But then again, IANAL (or a linguist).
Implications for Windshields and Radar Detectors
on
Self-Cleaning Glass
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
Is this slated for use in car windshields? If so, I wonder how this will affect the detection range of radar detectors.
A few years ago, there was a study of cars with windshields that use certain tinting and weatherproofing that (incadently) reduces the efficency of radar detectors, cutting detection range from 60-80%. There's some info on it here, and a bit more info here.
Yeah -- I tend to agree...If I have to get on a plane, bravery be damned. I'd rather not have to die in order to keep an airplane from being used as a weapon. Some basic security measures are obviously needed.
In WWII, citizens were asked to make sacrifices for the war effort, be it doubling production of goods for the military/war effort, or by making the supreme sacrifice for their country. But these were temporary measures under war...real war (you know -- the kind that only Congress has constitutional power to declare) not a war on drugs or terrorism. WWII was a real war officially declared againast a real country. With this comes some serious temporary measures -- up to, and including martial law. In a time of war, this is acceptable.
The US is not at war now. Yeah, there's a war on drugs, and a war on terrorism, but this is not (by any stretch of the imagination) a real bonafide, constitutional war (before you start to refute this, try finding an official declaration of war -- and a country tha we are at war with). However, during this so-called war, we have been asked to make some sacrifices. These are not temporary sacrifices, but permanant sacrifices in our civil liberties. Some of them no big deal. Some are the rights that we, as Americans hold most dear to us, such as due process and miranda rights. America now has Secret Police with secret arrests, and the secretly accused are tried in secret courtrooms...with and handed out secret sentences, to be served in secret institutions. How is this not reminicent of the former USSR's KGB and the Nazi's SS? Just because its in America? Is it OK just because we believe our cause to be just? Do the ends justify the means because we're really pissed off?
So you don't mind being searched a little more often, or not being allowed to carry your nail clippers onboard commercial airlines. That's fine, I don't really mind either...hell, I like the TSA folks better than the folks handling security pre 9/2001. However, it is completely fair to criticize certian aspects of our new security practices...and speaking up when you feel that your civil liberties are waning away for a bad reason is the right (American) thing to do.
As far as taking chances with my freedom and not yours...did you never realize that there is some calculated risk in being a free and open society? Do you recgonize the dangers of us not being that way (see former Soviet Union and Fascist Germany for recent examples)? It is determental for the people of our great society to act as the last check and/or balance against the power of our government.
Are you really choosing safety over freedom? Just because cars kill people does not mean that cars should be illegal (safety over freedom). Just because there are terorists about, and our country is a target, that our freedom of association should be permanently revoked. Now I understand your point about making alot of noise over small inconviences, such as prohibiting nailclippers to be carried onto a commercial airliner...but there are greater issues of liberty at stake...and many of these are decidely not minor inconviences.
1. Check out the auction, it says that the system is suitable for re-certificaton:
The system is being offered with a 30 day purchase money back or replacement as available warranty against failure from proper use, and that it will be suitable for EMC re-certification
I've seen other EMC systems on eBay advertised with a full EMC warranty.
2. If I hire an engineer full-time (hell -- for that money, a group of engineers, 4 at $100K annually over a 10-year project -- still cheaper than the $20M), do I need an EMC support contract? Do they need to come and fire the box up for my engineering/administrative group?
Its fine to point out where someone is wrong -- and I'm nore than willing to hear it and discuss it. However, its totally inappropriate to say rude shit and get in my face about it -- I guess that you still don't understand that. Too bad for you.
Why does nobody ever mention Network Appliance? They're very competitive with EMC feature- and reliability-wise, and definitely kill them on price.
Now that you mention it -- I don't know. I've used EMC, NetApp, and BlueArc -- but EMC was the first thing that came to mind...and I remember seeing EMC machines for sale on eBay before. I didn't have time to do extensive shopping/research, so I went with the lowest common denominator.
Yep your a "--Turkey" all right got about the same size brain if you think thats a viable solution...
Turkeybrain, maybe, but you're coming off as an arrogant prick! But I'll extend you the courtesy that you didn't bother to extend to me by giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Did you bother reading my entire post? Did you read the part where I stated that this was undisputable fact and that anyone with a problem with it is just plain wrong? That's right -- I didn't say that. In fact, I said that I did minimal research.
As far as finding a tech who knows EMC -- it shouldn't be more than $100-125K/yr full time-- and in this economy, they're out there for the hiring. Add in an extra $200 premium ea for those being EMC friendly drives, and you're up $51K or so. Am I getting any warmer? Still a hair under $20,000,000, right?
BTW -- why is it that because you're on slashdot you think you can get away with talking to me like that? If you walked up to me on the street and pulled that, I'd pop you right in the nose. Thanks for your extensive EMC knowledge, Junior.
Searching eBay for EMC provided some interesting results (these are mostly "buy it now" prices):
EMC Symmetrix 3930 w/ 12 TeraBytes = $57K
(With the proper drive configuration, this unit should be able to deliver up to 70TB in a single system). This one comes with 12TB of storage (256x50GB HD's). If you throw out all 256 of those 50GB HD's (or just give them to me as a consulting fee for saving your company over $19.5 million) and buy 256X181 GB HD's, you're just short of you 50 TB mark (~46,336 GB).
On Pricewatch those drives come out at $999 ea x 256=$255,744.00 add the initial $57K and you've got a machine that meets your specification significantly less than $20mil
This is what I found by doing minimal research. I'm not 100% sure that the Symmetrix 3930 can handle that configuration (its not my money) so before you go down this road -- do your research (better than I did).
I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but if you go the *nix route there's a decent window manager that is lightweight, and nicely configured right "out of the box". I haven't used it in some time -- but the project website suggests that development is still active...but check out the XFCE window manager.
If I didn't have to show up at work, and I still got paid, I would do the following
Sleep later
Get a part time job (or contract) to supplement my income
Probably smoke alot more pot
Get serious about my music...learn to play better and put a real band together
Read
Chill with my friends
Devote more time to amateur auto racing
Watch more TV & movies
Do more fun computer stuff (ie, not the stuff I do all day at work)
More sex
Masturbate
Ski
Write angry letters to politicians
Excercise more
Work on old cars
Possibly experiment with some new (to me) psychoactive/hallucinogenic drugs -- such as DMT and peyote
Cook better food
Start a business
Maybe get married and start making babies
Basically, do all of the shit that I fantasize about while I'm at work all day
Why are you asking? Are you looking for the best answer and then giving that person a stipend to quite their job? If you are...I can come up with fifty other things I'd rather do.
Can the author/IP owner of a GPL'ed app sue somebody like Sigma for monetary damages?
For example, let's say I write an app copyleft it under the GPL. Jow Blow (that bastard guy) repackages it, obscures the code, and sells the binary and makes $50,000,000. Can I sue Jow Blow for a large amount of money (say up to $50,000,000)?
I mean -- I wasn't going to make any money from selling the software anyway, so its not like I could legitimately ask to be recupirated for damages. Where is the line drawn? Is there legal precedent for this? Anyone know what kind of lawsuits have been enacted over GPL violations historically?
OK -- so you didn't want to buy a laptop, but what about a portable LCD-based DVD player? Most of those should have inputs to plug into any console, and although the screens are small, they close (like a laptop) to protect them from scratch damage etc.
Right...I totally agree with you. Documentaries and older movies would make for a great VoD service.
The problem is, documentaries and old movies don't sell enough to make VoD profitable on a large scale.
On a smaller scale, sure it could make some money -- but the infrastructure required for any VoD is costly enough to ensure that small scale VoD profits just won't cover the cost.
Lastly, (and I may be misunderstanding you) just because they have made back their cost of production (in some cases, decades ago) received hefty returns (in some cases, in excess of tenfold) -- do they no longer deserve their IP rights? Before you answer, put yourself in the position of a private investor -- should there be a cap on the amoount of return that you can receive on your investments? How is movie IP any different? Someone's got to raise the capital, and someone has to invest their money (and there's no assurance that they will receive an return on their investment).
Here's the problem...The American film industry is extremely resistant to any kind of change, and VoD is a HUGE change.
Its hard to forget about the stink that the MPAA made about the DVDCCA -- but the point was that studios wouldn't release digital copies of their IP unless they had some kind of (cryptographic) assurance that their IP was safe. They took it a step further and asked the federal gov to add a legal assurance on top of the crpyto assurance that said that nobody could legally fuck with their bad crypto (DMCA).
Point is, that the industry is extremely conservative. They need assurances on top of assurances that their revenue stream will never be threatened...and VoD is a threat -- to the status quo.
The other point I want to make is why change anything when they have a perfectly viable revenue stream? The technology for VoD certianly exists, and it seems to have reached enough homes where it has attained the critical mass where it could become profitable. Problem is that in order to make it successful, the copyright holders to all of the shit that people want to watch don't want to give up their cash cow. Why throw out one perfectly good revenue stream and roll the dice on a completely new one?
The American film industry won't change a damn thing until they have to...
Plausible, except that most of the cable services USED to have at least 1mb/s upstream in the good old days.
I am quite sure that I am technicaly correct here. Perhaps in the good old days, cable companies could not turn a buck...or afford to give away the better modems?
don't understand why they cap the uploads, anyway. Aren't most larger pipes syncronous (1.54up and 1.54down, etc.)? And if most people are downloading, it seems like there's a huge amount of upload b/w just sitting there, doing nothing.
I'm afraid its not that simple.
T1's are synchronous and capable of the speeds that you mention -- but cablemodems aren't T1's...
Just upstream from your cablemodem (bridge), there is a repeater capable of transmitting and receiving at 10Mb/s. Relative to your bridge, it is extremely expensive.
Your bridge is capable of receiving at a full 10Mb/s, however, the transmitter is very weak compared to that of the repeater upstream. To put a better transmitter in your bridge would increase the cost of it significantly.
Remember, there is enough bandwidth out there to keep you pretty happy -- its just a question of infrastructure. The reason that we use cablemodems and DSL is because we want to use the existing infrastructure to connect to a junction box (which typically has fiber connected to it). Your bridge has to transmit through old-ass coaxial cable up to a half mile -- that takes alot of transmitting power just to get 384Kb/s.
Slashdot Mirror
IANAL, but to answer Kevin Kelly's concerns about legality of laser jamming. His analogy with police radar has no prescedent. The police radar is governed by the FCC, and citizens aren't allowed to deliberately interefere with radio devices. However, lasers are governed by the FDA -- and jamming police laser (lidar, actually) is, and alwas has been completely legal (except in VA).
For more information, check this out. Its a laser jammer test, but has some information on the law of laser (lidar) jamming.
Disclaimer: radartest.com kind of sucks. It is not all objective and they're particularly biased against the Valentine Research manufacturer of radar locators due to a personal vendetta between the two companies' founders/owners.
Politics, politics, politics, my friend.
The US can lean on countries using whatever power it has (it does/will do this). Fact is, the politics of the situation are not the savage, horrible thing that people are whining about, it seems like more of a political/diplomatic reality that has always gone on, that people are recently awaking to. (I'm going to go out on a limb here) It is a realization very similar to the US's young people lashing out because they discover that the "one man, one vote" mantra is bullshit -- its really "one man, one vote...but before that comes lots of campaign financing, handshaking, and lobbying". Its nothing new -- its the way its always worked...people just weren't completely aware...
The US will use any means at its disposal for leverage, be it foreign aid, tariffs on imports/exports, military power/placement, embargos, control of shipping channels & oil pipelines, land, as well as its powerful positions in the UN. The US is having a related (UN) problem right now with Russia and China. Russia and China have veto power in the UN Security Council, and if the politics aren't played right, they will certainly veto any UN-endorsed action against Iraq. The US was able to gain the support of Russia by negotiating the control and security of the Russian/Iraqi oil fields. Is it an insidous process? I don't think so...I think that its the way the game is played. It just happens that the US gets to play the game with a really good hand (and its not like that great hand was just given to the Americans for nothing, which is what the rest of the world seems to believe).
Look at any US foreign policy deal in the past two centuries. You will find that there was give and take on all sides, and each country used whatever pressure it could to negotiate whatever deal that was being made.
Its getting pretty typical for hearhunters to do a bait and switch on the postings. Since September, 2001, its been getting worse and worse. Jobs are listed on Dice with outlandishly high salaries (for what they are), just so a headhunter can increase their resume-base. I've called on a number of those hours after they were posted, and I get "Oh, that position is no longer available, but what about this other horrible job?"
Its horribly dishonest, and I've had better results from a local paper every time. I've also seen pretty good results from net-temps, although I haven't looked there in months.
Good luck!
I've never tried this, but I've thought about it on more than one occasion. Maybe you should try putting NetBSD/hpcMIPS on a handheld PC device. Compile Apache, PERL, whatever. Buy a 256MB flashcard and serve off of there. If you're weary of flashcards, try a microdrive (more space, less price). In any case, these devices should use less wattage than a laptop, and they are available on eBay for cheap (check out the IBM z50 -- its what most people seem to use with NetBSD/hpcMIPS). Just don't go serving any heavy traffic :)
Hope this helps.
Not to be too picky about this (and I agree with your statement), but technically, SurfControl's false statements about the Libertartarian Party are more likely libel than slander. Slander is spoken, libel is written. But then again, IANAL (or a linguist).
Is this slated for use in car windshields? If so, I wonder how this will affect the detection range of radar detectors.
A few years ago, there was a study of cars with windshields that use certain tinting and weatherproofing that (incadently) reduces the efficency of radar detectors, cutting detection range from 60-80%. There's some info on it here, and a bit more info here.
Here's the problem with your argument:
In WWII, citizens were asked to make sacrifices for the war effort, be it doubling production of goods for the military/war effort, or by making the supreme sacrifice for their country. But these were temporary measures under war...real war (you know -- the kind that only Congress has constitutional power to declare) not a war on drugs or terrorism. WWII was a real war officially declared againast a real country. With this comes some serious temporary measures -- up to, and including martial law. In a time of war, this is acceptable.
The US is not at war now. Yeah, there's a war on drugs, and a war on terrorism, but this is not (by any stretch of the imagination) a real bonafide, constitutional war (before you start to refute this, try finding an official declaration of war -- and a country tha we are at war with). However, during this so-called war, we have been asked to make some sacrifices. These are not temporary sacrifices, but permanant sacrifices in our civil liberties. Some of them no big deal. Some are the rights that we, as Americans hold most dear to us, such as due process and miranda rights. America now has Secret Police with secret arrests, and the secretly accused are tried in secret courtrooms...with and handed out secret sentences, to be served in secret institutions. How is this not reminicent of the former USSR's KGB and the Nazi's SS? Just because its in America? Is it OK just because we believe our cause to be just? Do the ends justify the means because we're really pissed off?
So you don't mind being searched a little more often, or not being allowed to carry your nail clippers onboard commercial airlines. That's fine, I don't really mind either...hell, I like the TSA folks better than the folks handling security pre 9/2001. However, it is completely fair to criticize certian aspects of our new security practices...and speaking up when you feel that your civil liberties are waning away for a bad reason is the right (American) thing to do.
As far as taking chances with my freedom and not yours...did you never realize that there is some calculated risk in being a free and open society? Do you recgonize the dangers of us not being that way (see former Soviet Union and Fascist Germany for recent examples)? It is determental for the people of our great society to act as the last check and/or balance against the power of our government.
Are you really choosing safety over freedom? Just because cars kill people does not mean that cars should be illegal (safety over freedom). Just because there are terorists about, and our country is a target, that our freedom of association should be permanently revoked. Now I understand your point about making alot of noise over small inconviences, such as prohibiting nailclippers to be carried onto a commercial airliner...but there are greater issues of liberty at stake...and many of these are decidely not minor inconviences.
Junior, you really are an arrogant little prick
1. Check out the auction, it says that the system is suitable for re-certificaton:
I've seen other EMC systems on eBay advertised with a full EMC warranty.2. If I hire an engineer full-time (hell -- for that money, a group of engineers, 4 at $100K annually over a 10-year project -- still cheaper than the $20M), do I need an EMC support contract? Do they need to come and fire the box up for my engineering/administrative group?
Thanks for the info though...
Its fine to point out where someone is wrong -- and I'm nore than willing to hear it and discuss it. However, its totally inappropriate to say rude shit and get in my face about it -- I guess that you still don't understand that. Too bad for you.
Now that you mention it -- I don't know. I've used EMC, NetApp, and BlueArc -- but EMC was the first thing that came to mind...and I remember seeing EMC machines for sale on eBay before. I didn't have time to do extensive shopping/research, so I went with the lowest common denominator.
Turkeybrain, maybe, but you're coming off as an arrogant prick! But I'll extend you the courtesy that you didn't bother to extend to me by giving you the benefit of the doubt.
Did you bother reading my entire post? Did you read the part where I stated that this was undisputable fact and that anyone with a problem with it is just plain wrong? That's right -- I didn't say that. In fact, I said that I did minimal research.
As far as finding a tech who knows EMC -- it shouldn't be more than $100-125K/yr full time-- and in this economy, they're out there for the hiring. Add in an extra $200 premium ea for those being EMC friendly drives, and you're up $51K or so. Am I getting any warmer? Still a hair under $20,000,000, right?
BTW -- why is it that because you're on slashdot you think you can get away with talking to me like that? If you walked up to me on the street and pulled that, I'd pop you right in the nose. Thanks for your extensive EMC knowledge, Junior.
Searching eBay for EMC provided some interesting results (these are mostly "buy it now" prices):
EMC Symmetrix 3930 w/ 12 TeraBytes = $57K
(With the proper drive configuration, this unit should be able to deliver up to 70TB in a single system).
This one comes with 12TB of storage (256x50GB HD's). If you throw out all 256 of those 50GB HD's (or just give them to me as a consulting fee for saving your company over $19.5 million) and buy 256X181 GB HD's, you're just short of you 50 TB mark (~46,336 GB).
On Pricewatch those drives come out at $999 ea x 256=$255,744.00 add the initial $57K and you've got a machine that meets your specification significantly less than $20mil
Here are some other EMC machines for sale on eBay:
EMC Symmetrix 3830-36 With 3 TB No Reserve! = $59K
EMC Symmetrix 3700 6TB w/Install & 1YR Mnt! = $48K
EMC Symmetrix 5700 3TB Storage System = $9K
This is what I found by doing minimal research. I'm not 100% sure that the Symmetrix 3930 can handle that configuration (its not my money) so before you go down this road -- do your research (better than I did).
I haven't seen this mentioned yet, but if you go the *nix route there's a decent window manager that is lightweight, and nicely configured right "out of the box". I haven't used it in some time -- but the project website suggests that development is still active...but check out the XFCE window manager.
Check it out here.
Its lightweight, and in the past, its run quite well on all of my old naff hardware. It borrows alot from Sun's CDE.
If I didn't have to show up at work, and I still got paid, I would do the following
Why are you asking? Are you looking for the best answer and then giving that person a stipend to quite their job? If you are...I can come up with fifty other things I'd rather do.
Thanks y'all...
That was informative.
This brings up an interesting question...
Can the author/IP owner of a GPL'ed app sue somebody like Sigma for monetary damages?
For example, let's say I write an app copyleft it under the GPL. Jow Blow (that bastard guy) repackages it, obscures the code, and sells the binary and makes $50,000,000. Can I sue Jow Blow for a large amount of money (say up to $50,000,000)?
I mean -- I wasn't going to make any money from selling the software anyway, so its not like I could legitimately ask to be recupirated for damages. Where is the line drawn? Is there legal precedent for this? Anyone know what kind of lawsuits have been enacted over GPL violations historically?
Here's a good link that has information on syncing your private NTP server to GPS.
OK -- so you didn't want to buy a laptop, but what about a portable LCD-based DVD player? Most of those should have inputs to plug into any console, and although the screens are small, they close (like a laptop) to protect them from scratch damage etc.
Right...I totally agree with you. Documentaries and older movies would make for a great VoD service.
The problem is, documentaries and old movies don't sell enough to make VoD profitable on a large scale.
On a smaller scale, sure it could make some money -- but the infrastructure required for any VoD is costly enough to ensure that small scale VoD profits just won't cover the cost.
Lastly, (and I may be misunderstanding you) just because they have made back their cost of production (in some cases, decades ago) received hefty returns (in some cases, in excess of tenfold) -- do they no longer deserve their IP rights? Before you answer, put yourself in the position of a private investor -- should there be a cap on the amoount of return that you can receive on your investments? How is movie IP any different? Someone's got to raise the capital, and someone has to invest their money (and there's no assurance that they will receive an return on their investment).
Amen, brother.
Here's the problem...The American film industry is extremely resistant to any kind of change, and VoD is a HUGE change.
Its hard to forget about the stink that the MPAA made about the DVDCCA -- but the point was that studios wouldn't release digital copies of their IP unless they had some kind of (cryptographic) assurance that their IP was safe. They took it a step further and asked the federal gov to add a legal assurance on top of the crpyto assurance that said that nobody could legally fuck with their bad crypto (DMCA).
Point is, that the industry is extremely conservative. They need assurances on top of assurances that their revenue stream will never be threatened...and VoD is a threat -- to the status quo.
The other point I want to make is why change anything when they have a perfectly viable revenue stream? The technology for VoD certianly exists, and it seems to have reached enough homes where it has attained the critical mass where it could become profitable. Problem is that in order to make it successful, the copyright holders to all of the shit that people want to watch don't want to give up their cash cow. Why throw out one perfectly good revenue stream and roll the dice on a completely new one?
The American film industry won't change a damn thing until they have to...
I am quite sure that I am technicaly correct here. Perhaps in the good old days, cable companies could not turn a buck...or afford to give away the better modems?
-Turkey
I'm afraid its not that simple.
T1's are synchronous and capable of the speeds that you mention -- but cablemodems aren't T1's...
Just upstream from your cablemodem (bridge), there is a repeater capable of transmitting and receiving at 10Mb/s. Relative to your bridge, it is extremely expensive.
Your bridge is capable of receiving at a full 10Mb/s, however, the transmitter is very weak compared to that of the repeater upstream. To put a better transmitter in your bridge would increase the cost of it significantly.
Remember, there is enough bandwidth out there to keep you pretty happy -- its just a question of infrastructure. The reason that we use cablemodems and DSL is because we want to use the existing infrastructure to connect to a junction box (which typically has fiber connected to it). Your bridge has to transmit through old-ass coaxial cable up to a half mile -- that takes alot of transmitting power just to get 384Kb/s.
-Turkey