minor correction, 486->Pentium did not require a case/power supply change until about the time of the P2's/ATX formfactor/BX chipset... before that the Pentiums were all on Socket7 AT-formfactor motherboards...
remind us all why you stuck with a compaq laptop? i hope it was only because pc connection wasn't willing to give you one of some other manufacturer's model...
MMDS is Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Services. Like I said before, I'm not an RF specialist so I'm not totally hip on it either. It's a certain segment of spectrum set aside within an area for use only to the entity that holds the FCC license for it. If you'd like more information, you can try http://www.nucentrix.net for information on their service which uses it, or you can try http://www.google.com to search the web. There's plenty of info out there, i'm just too lazy right now to get it.:)
i dunno, aren't most upstream data requests mouseclicks and simple data requests? aside from servers and gaming, high outbound data bandwidth is probably not as much of a priority.
1. network buildout (laying the cable, setting up bandwidth, etc)
2. overcoming advertising of companies like timewarner
3. some other things i probably forgot
to be more explicit, in (2) above i refer to timewarner. what i mean by that is timewarner is a juggernaut. they own the cablemodem internet service that they provide and they own the tv service they provide. the tv service sells quite well due to the semi-monopoly mentioned previously and gives them an advertising advantage. in order to overcome this advertising advantage you would either have to provide your own tv service to consumers (with all the costs associates with THAT business) or you would have to pay them to advertise on their networks to reach their consumers, which would still cost you and put money into their pockets (which is their end goal anyway). either way it's tough and you're getting the short end of the stick in the competition.
in (1) above, i refer to network buildout. i don't know much about timewarner's buildout, but it probably involves quite a lot of cable laid in various places. this was probably expensive to do, which is a barrier to entry and paid off only over a long amount of time. (i could be wrong.) for the internet side of things, you've got to have your routers, servers, switches, bandwidth, and redundancy in all of those things. (not to mention personnel.) the last-mile war is probably more of a pain in the ass to do, though. several companies, like the one i used to work for (http://www.nucentrix.net if you care), are attempting to circumvent this by creating their own last-mile arena in the form of fixed-point wireless services. they hold licences for MMDS spectrum usage in certain areas, and are converting its use from wireless cable tv to wireless internet service. they put an antenna/transceiver on your roof which transmits/receives a signal from a local tower, run RG-6 cable down to a cablemodem inside the building, and a 10baseT ethernet jack on the back of that plugs into your pc/router/hub/whatever. there are limitations to this, however, the most notable that there must be line-of-sight from the transmission tower to the target antenna. line of sight is sometimes difficult to obtain, because even if the terrain map shows line-of-sight on the lay of the land, there may still exist other obstructions like buildings, trees in front of your house, etc. Multipath is also an issue, although since i'm not an RF specialist, i won't go into that. in any case, unless you build your own last mile you'll still end up giving the existing companies a share of your profits, and if you do build your own then you're incurring an even larger cost to yourself, at least intitially.
i would like to include a mild disclaimer at the end of this post: i don't guarantee anything i write to be 100% correct, and if you find that i speak falsely about anything herein, feel free to correct me. please just don't be a jerk about it.
The law, 100's of millions of lines of code - not one line of which has ever been tested to see if it works.
hmm. this makes me wonder if it is possible to subject law code to the same rigorous testing and proofs of its 'algorithms' as computer code is. (this comment, of course, displays my rather large ignorance of things law-related. heh.)
yeah, and what they have on their side is that they don't have the logistical nightmare of attempting to coordinate 'a few thousand' programmers/technicians/admins who have other things to do.
kind of what i was thinking. if you want to combat an idea, then you have to combat it with other ideas which weaken it... kind of like 'poisoning' the original idea. dilution, dissection, disinformation... all tools to destroy ideas and movements with. divide and conquer.
the technology for autocannons most likely already exists (kind of a stupid statement given the subject of this entire column.) hell, the government has probably had autocannons for some time. i mean how hard would it be to make big ones for base defence connected to IR (image recognition) or movement sensors?
1. Akira (a real classic, score:8 of 10)
2. Ghost in the Shell (already mentioned, score:9 of 10)
3. Doomed Megalopolis (4 episodes total, score:6 of 10)
4. Record of the Lodoss Wars (approx 13 episodes total, score:5 of 10)
5. Battle Angel Alita (score: 5 of 10)
6. The Venus Wars (score: 5 of 10)
7. The Professional: Golgo 13 (score: 3 of 10)
I'm kind of picky about anime. Those are the ones that I have. In general I vastly prefer things like Akira and Ghost in the Shell because they tend to be more like animated movies, rather than high-grade cartoons.
if you reply saying 'i dont like flatplanet and i wont ever buy anything from you', they will just harvest your email address from your email that you sent to them complaining and put it on their list of email addresses to spam and sell to other spammers.
it is a corporation subverting an open source project for its own profits. this is, in and of itself, grossly unethical, immoral, and just plain wrong.
however, a more interesting but potentially paranoid point is this: what do you think the potential is that this is an (unofficial of course) RIAA/MPAA sponsored subversion of another file-sharing tool to render it useless? this would be a double-whammy to filesharing as they hammer napster in the courts, or might potentially be an indication that they've decided that legal action against such things is ineffective and therefore must take direct action themselves to ruin these tools.
Slashdot Mirror
minor correction, 486->Pentium did not require a case/power supply change until about the time of the P2's/ATX formfactor/BX chipset... before that the Pentiums were all on Socket7 AT-formfactor motherboards...
eudas
remind us all why you stuck with a compaq laptop? i hope it was only because pc connection wasn't willing to give you one of some other manufacturer's model...
eudas
here's a better link:
http://www.wdslconsortium.com/mmds.html
eudas
MMDS is Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Services. Like I said before, I'm not an RF specialist so I'm not totally hip on it either. It's a certain segment of spectrum set aside within an area for use only to the entity that holds the FCC license for it. If you'd like more information, you can try http://www.nucentrix.net for information on their service which uses it, or you can try http://www.google.com to search the web. There's plenty of info out there, i'm just too lazy right now to get it. :)
eudas
new users is all the internet needs... ;)
eudas
i dunno, aren't most upstream data requests mouseclicks and simple data requests? aside from servers and gaming, high outbound data bandwidth is probably not as much of a priority.
just a clueless $0.02.
eudas
the barriers to entry probably consist of
1. network buildout (laying the cable, setting up bandwidth, etc)
2. overcoming advertising of companies like timewarner
3. some other things i probably forgot
to be more explicit, in (2) above i refer to timewarner. what i mean by that is timewarner is a juggernaut. they own the cablemodem internet service that they provide and they own the tv service they provide. the tv service sells quite well due to the semi-monopoly mentioned previously and gives them an advertising advantage. in order to overcome this advertising advantage you would either have to provide your own tv service to consumers (with all the costs associates with THAT business) or you would have to pay them to advertise on their networks to reach their consumers, which would still cost you and put money into their pockets (which is their end goal anyway). either way it's tough and you're getting the short end of the stick in the competition.
in (1) above, i refer to network buildout. i don't know much about timewarner's buildout, but it probably involves quite a lot of cable laid in various places. this was probably expensive to do, which is a barrier to entry and paid off only over a long amount of time. (i could be wrong.) for the internet side of things, you've got to have your routers, servers, switches, bandwidth, and redundancy in all of those things. (not to mention personnel.) the last-mile war is probably more of a pain in the ass to do, though. several companies, like the one i used to work for (http://www.nucentrix.net if you care), are attempting to circumvent this by creating their own last-mile arena in the form of fixed-point wireless services. they hold licences for MMDS spectrum usage in certain areas, and are converting its use from wireless cable tv to wireless internet service. they put an antenna/transceiver on your roof which transmits/receives a signal from a local tower, run RG-6 cable down to a cablemodem inside the building, and a 10baseT ethernet jack on the back of that plugs into your pc/router/hub/whatever. there are limitations to this, however, the most notable that there must be line-of-sight from the transmission tower to the target antenna. line of sight is sometimes difficult to obtain, because even if the terrain map shows line-of-sight on the lay of the land, there may still exist other obstructions like buildings, trees in front of your house, etc. Multipath is also an issue, although since i'm not an RF specialist, i won't go into that. in any case, unless you build your own last mile you'll still end up giving the existing companies a share of your profits, and if you do build your own then you're incurring an even larger cost to yourself, at least intitially.
i would like to include a mild disclaimer at the end of this post: i don't guarantee anything i write to be 100% correct, and if you find that i speak falsely about anything herein, feel free to correct me. please just don't be a jerk about it.
eudas
cnn hires geeks too...
eudas
eudas
yeah, and what they have on their side is that they don't have the logistical nightmare of attempting to coordinate 'a few thousand' programmers/technicians/admins who have other things to do.
eudas
i do not believe that this moderation is accurate. IMO this poster is right on target and deserves to be moderated UP, not down. i think he's right.
eudas
kind of what i was thinking. if you want to combat an idea, then you have to combat it with other ideas which weaken it... kind of like 'poisoning' the original idea. dilution, dissection, disinformation... all tools to destroy ideas and movements with. divide and conquer.
eudas
Your wife must be the only female in North America who thinks it's bad then. ;) In which case, you make a good pair, heh.
eudas
maybe we should've helped 'em then and pointed them over to Redmond...
eudas
the technology for autocannons most likely already exists (kind of a stupid statement given the subject of this entire column.) hell, the government has probably had autocannons for some time. i mean how hard would it be to make big ones for base defence connected to IR (image recognition) or movement sensors?
eudas
nice system shock 2 reference. :)
eudas
you wrote:
3. Legal concerns. What happens if it shoots a pregnant woman?
my answer:
the same thing that happens when it shoots anybody else.
eudas
sounds like legalese uses the same principle as firewalling -- anything not explicitly allowed is denied. :)
eudas
i thought of that game years ago. :P
eudas
the answer is to not purchase thief3 and thereby punish eidos for its business tactics.
eudas
Oh yeah, I also forgot:
1. A Wind Named Amnesia (score: 6 of 10)
2. Princess Mononoke (haven't seen it yet, score: unknown)
3. Sol Bianca (score: 4 of 10)
eudas
1. Akira (a real classic, score:8 of 10)
2. Ghost in the Shell (already mentioned, score:9 of 10)
3. Doomed Megalopolis (4 episodes total, score:6 of 10)
4. Record of the Lodoss Wars (approx 13 episodes total, score:5 of 10)
5. Battle Angel Alita (score: 5 of 10)
6. The Venus Wars (score: 5 of 10)
7. The Professional: Golgo 13 (score: 3 of 10)
I'm kind of picky about anime. Those are the ones that I have. In general I vastly prefer things like Akira and Ghost in the Shell because they tend to be more like animated movies, rather than high-grade cartoons.
eudas
if you reply saying 'i dont like flatplanet and i wont ever buy anything from you', they will just harvest your email address from your email that you sent to them complaining and put it on their list of email addresses to spam and sell to other spammers.
eudas
it is a corporation subverting an open source project for its own profits. this is, in and of itself, grossly unethical, immoral, and just plain wrong.
however, a more interesting but potentially paranoid point is this: what do you think the potential is that this is an (unofficial of course) RIAA/MPAA sponsored subversion of another file-sharing tool to render it useless? this would be a double-whammy to filesharing as they hammer napster in the courts, or might potentially be an indication that they've decided that legal action against such things is ineffective and therefore must take direct action themselves to ruin these tools.
anyway, just a few concepts.
eudas
try a 19" monitor (i got mine for about USD$300), some decent computer speakers (maybe with a subwoofer) and a comfortable chair.
eudas