Here's the problem with New York City: it would be exorbitantly expensive to replace all the old telco wiring in place to new wiring that is broadband-friendly.
That would be great if you're near a population center like Stockholm or Helsinki, but get out into rural areas and I don't think the telco will hardwire ADSL or cable modem access out into these areas, especially considering the northern European winters.
The sheer size of the USA, the large number of thinly-populated rural areas and the sprawled-out nature of many US cities is why the USA is still behind in broadband usage. This isn't like Japan, South Korea and Europe, where the very high population density makes the economically viable to set up hardwired ADSL and cable modem broadband because there are enough potential users per hectare in an urban area to offset the exorbitant cost of doing the "last kilometer" connection to the residence.
Indeed, it's only with the development of the equivalent of a small "central switch office" around 2001-2002 time fram that ADSL availability jumped dramatically in US metropolitan areas. At where I live now, I couldn't get ADSL until 2004!
Even with this new technology, you still have to contend with the sound of air being blown around inside the refrigerator to cool the food. Mind you, with better sound insulation, refrigerators with current technology are much quieter than older models.
I wasn't until 2002 when the Chinese company APEX finally forced everyone to develop lower-cost chipsets to compete in the lower-end market. Up until 2002, a decent-quality DVD player started in the US$300 range--and that was without 480p component video output! My Panasonic DVD-S35 player (which came out in early 2003) was among the very first players from a major manufacturer to respond to the threat from APEX.
There's good reason for this: an HDTV-quality two-hour movie is many gigabytes in size even with VC-1 or AVC compression. Given you don't want to tie up even a home fiber-optic connection for hours to download the movie and/or your broadband ISP imposes download caps per month, that could make downloading HD-quality movies a non-starter from both a business and technical point of view.
Besides, with a Blu-ray disc you can be less aggressive with the video compression, so the picture quality is generally excellent to start with.
I still remember when the first players came out in 1997, they were pretty expensive (US$500 and way higher!), and definitely lacked the 480p component video output we take for granted with a modern DVD player. The first 480p players weren't cheap, either--you were lucky to get one under US$550 back then.
With new decoding chipsets for Blu-ray players now available, I expect Profile 1.1 players to drop under US$200 and Profile 2.0 players to drop under US$250 by the end of this year.
I think you're forgetting that until around 2002, the price of a good DVD player wasn't cheap, either--good players back then start in the US$250 or higher range.
Blu-ray players are still relatively expensive because the circuit boards for the player are still pretty expensive to manufacture. However, new Blu-ray player chipsets unveiled at CES back in January 2008 will cut the production costs drastically, and we could see retail cost of a Profile 1.1 player drop under US$200 by this fall, which will really spur player sales.
And more importantly, the price of players aren't so exorbitant anymore. You can get a good player for under US$400--and the price of players will continue to drop as new players with better, less expensive integrated circuits cut production costs even further. Given the relatively strong sales of widescreen TV's, there's a ready market for Blu-ray players right now.
Also, do we really need a 1 MT nuclear device--essentially a modified B83 nuclear bomb--to stop an asteroid? They could probably get away with using a much smaller device in the 15-20 kT range, where the shockwave of the detonation generates enough power to "nudge" the asteroid to a new, safer orbit.
Except for one thing: streaming Internet radio only works if you pretty much close to standing still (e.g., if you are at a Wi-Fi "hotspot" or if your device is directly connected to broadband connction). If you driving--especially on long-distance trips--satellite radio is a better choice, especially west of the Mississippi River, where far fewer metropolitan areas exist.
2.) 256kbs is hardly what I would call 'excellent sound quality.' Decent for headphones for a fairly broad scale of musical style? Sure. 320kbs non-variable is 'moderately acceptible' on a 7.1 surround sound system. FLAC, APE, (lossless) are 'excellent sound quality.' I have yet to see lossless tracks for sale on amazon.
I would agree we do prefer lossless compression formats such as Apple Lossless or FLAC for best sound quality, but between the facts that:
1) Few portable music players support the FLAC format "out of the box."
2) Apple Lossless is not really that usable outside of an iPod.
3) Apple Lossless or FLAC formats take up a lot of storage space on a per minute basis.
You can forget about downloadable albums in FLAC or Apple Lossless formats from a major retail site anytime soon.
Amazon has go to with the solution that all portable music players can use and also not tie up the broadband connection downloading very large music files. As such, they did an excellent compromise with the 256 kbps variable bit rate MP3 format, which sounds very good even on most home stereo systems. I do think, though since server storage space costs very little money nowadays, Amazon should offer an option to download the file in unlocked 256 kbps variable bit rate AAC format, since iPods represent the vast majority of portable music players out there and many newer portable music players can play back unlocked AAC files.
Thank you very much for mentioning the Amazon MP3 store!:-)
In short, Amazon's MP3 store is the first truly viable alternative the iTunes Music Store for these these reasons:
1) The cost in many cases is much lower than iTMS on a per-song and per-album basis.
2) Amazon encodes their MP3's using the LAME 3.97 encoder with 256 kbps variable bit rate encoding, which results in excellent sound quality that is almost the same as the uncompressed CD original.
3) Because the MP3 files have no DRM restrictions, that means no hassles copying the music with third-party programs to your portable music player.
4) Amazon's MP3 downloader program automatically puts the playlist into either Windows Media Player 11.0 or iTunes, which means easy syncing with your favorite portable music player that uses these programs to copy music to your player.
It's small wonder why I've bought several albums through the Amazon MP3 store and are searching for more albums to download. That explains why older music stores that use DRM restrictions are rapidly falling by the wayside.
Here's the problem: electric public utilities are designed NOT for distributed power generation today.
However, the technology is starting to come in place that will allow for distributed power generation in the next 20-30 years, especially with the anticipation of rapid drops in the cost of solar panels for home use now that nanotechnology could cut the cost by a factor of eight or more and the arrival of battery storage units using carbon nanotube supercapacitors. That will allow home users to sell their excess power to other users who really need it easily.
That was great, but Opera Software's decision to charge for a full-featured version without intruding ads up until 2005 severely cut its marketshare compared to IE (which shipped as part of Windows since Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2) and Firefox (which was always free to use). If Opera Software had decided to make its browser truly "free" in 2003 its marketshare would be vastly larger, that's to be sure.
The biggest reason why Opera never got "traction" among Windows and MacOS users was that up until 2005, you couldn't get a full-featured version that was truly "free" (and that meant no ads either!). Meanwhile, IE came as part of Windows since Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2, and of course Firefox has always been free to download (the "free as bheer" thing is really enticing in this case).
Sure, Opera invented a lot of the features we take on IE 7.0 and Firefox 3.0.x for granted, but because of the price issue Opera was never really taken seriously as a competitor to IE and Firefox.
The AMD Athlon was a superior CPU over Intel's Prescott core Pentium 4 because 1) the Athlon's CPU core was a more modern design and 2) it ran WAY cooler than the Pentium 4 CPU's of that period.
But once Intel struck back with the Core and Core 2 Duo CPU's with its cooler-running technology borrowed from the Pentium III-M CPU plus a new CPU core, Intel got back its technological lead that it has yet to relinquish.
Actually, the Conroe-core CPU did borrow a lot from the design of the Pentium III-M, especially in the way it did power management to keep the CPU running cool. But the result was perhaps Intel's best CPU since the 80486DX.
Actually, the smartest move Intel did this decade was to drop all further development of the Prescott-core Pentium 4 (which was running WAY too hot) and to base its CPU designs on the excellent Pentium III-M CPU, which was a fast, very cool-running core to start with (after all, it was designed specifically for laptop applications).
The result was the Conroe-core series of CPU's, which single-handedly got Intel back its technological edge that it has yet to relinquish.
If you have a machine built in the past year with a CPU that has more than one CPU core, why bother with Windows XP. I'm using an HP Pavilion a6400f consumer desktop computer that has an Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2200 CPU (essentially a Core 2 Duo with only 1 MB L2 cache), 3 GB of RAM, 500 GB SATA-300 HD, and onboard Intel G33 graphics with no problems whatsoever, so I'm stumped. (shrug)
I'm using Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1) on my recently-bought HP Pavilion a6400f and I have no real significant issues at all with the machine--it's a modicum of stability and even the pre-installed software works quite well, Firefox 3.0 (now 3.0.1) works great, and Windows Update works very well with effects on installed software. Did I miss something from all the detractors?
I remember watching History Channel's Mega Disasters and one episode they talked about the possibility of a gigantic landslide from the southeastern slope of Mt. Etna during an eruption around 6000 BC, which may have caused substantial tsunami damage in much of the eastern Mediterranean shoreline. In a related vein, when the island of Thera erupted around 1630 BC, the eruption caused the center of the island to implode, which caused a massive inrush of seawater and triggering off a massive tsunami that may have wiped out the Minoan civilization on the north coast of Crete.
As such, the dismissals of the a potential gigantic landslide westwards from the Cumbre Vieja on La Palma island are dangerously misguided. If that landslide triggered by an volcano eruption is a big one, we could see suddenly many millions of tons of soil and rock suddenly rush into the Atlantic, and that could result in a massive tsunami that could be as high as 30 meters when it makes landfall along the east coast of the USA and Canada. The amount of damage would be shocking, to say the least.
Actually, there are two places in the western Great Plains where large scale wind farms are practical, mostly because of the relatively short transmission distances to major customers: western Texas and eastern Colorado.
Why eastern Colorado? Because they don't need long distances of transmission cables to transmit wind power from the wind farms there back to the Boulder-Denver-Colorado Springs metropolitan corridor.
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Here's the problem with New York City: it would be exorbitantly expensive to replace all the old telco wiring in place to new wiring that is broadband-friendly.
That would be great if you're near a population center like Stockholm or Helsinki, but get out into rural areas and I don't think the telco will hardwire ADSL or cable modem access out into these areas, especially considering the northern European winters.
The sheer size of the USA, the large number of thinly-populated rural areas and the sprawled-out nature of many US cities is why the USA is still behind in broadband usage. This isn't like Japan, South Korea and Europe, where the very high population density makes the economically viable to set up hardwired ADSL and cable modem broadband because there are enough potential users per hectare in an urban area to offset the exorbitant cost of doing the "last kilometer" connection to the residence.
Indeed, it's only with the development of the equivalent of a small "central switch office" around 2001-2002 time fram that ADSL availability jumped dramatically in US metropolitan areas. At where I live now, I couldn't get ADSL until 2004!
Even with this new technology, you still have to contend with the sound of air being blown around inside the refrigerator to cool the food. Mind you, with better sound insulation, refrigerators with current technology are much quieter than older models.
I wasn't until 2002 when the Chinese company APEX finally forced everyone to develop lower-cost chipsets to compete in the lower-end market. Up until 2002, a decent-quality DVD player started in the US$300 range--and that was without 480p component video output! My Panasonic DVD-S35 player (which came out in early 2003) was among the very first players from a major manufacturer to respond to the threat from APEX.
I would agree right now, but that was what people were saying about DVD's earlier than 2002, when a decent quality player started in the US$300 range.
The answer is no.
There's good reason for this: an HDTV-quality two-hour movie is many gigabytes in size even with VC-1 or AVC compression. Given you don't want to tie up even a home fiber-optic connection for hours to download the movie and/or your broadband ISP imposes download caps per month, that could make downloading HD-quality movies a non-starter from both a business and technical point of view.
Besides, with a Blu-ray disc you can be less aggressive with the video compression, so the picture quality is generally excellent to start with.
I still remember when the first players came out in 1997, they were pretty expensive (US$500 and way higher!), and definitely lacked the 480p component video output we take for granted with a modern DVD player. The first 480p players weren't cheap, either--you were lucky to get one under US$550 back then.
With new decoding chipsets for Blu-ray players now available, I expect Profile 1.1 players to drop under US$200 and Profile 2.0 players to drop under US$250 by the end of this year.
I think you're forgetting that until around 2002, the price of a good DVD player wasn't cheap, either--good players back then start in the US$250 or higher range.
Blu-ray players are still relatively expensive because the circuit boards for the player are still pretty expensive to manufacture. However, new Blu-ray player chipsets unveiled at CES back in January 2008 will cut the production costs drastically, and we could see retail cost of a Profile 1.1 player drop under US$200 by this fall, which will really spur player sales.
And more importantly, the price of players aren't so exorbitant anymore. You can get a good player for under US$400--and the price of players will continue to drop as new players with better, less expensive integrated circuits cut production costs even further. Given the relatively strong sales of widescreen TV's, there's a ready market for Blu-ray players right now.
Also, do we really need a 1 MT nuclear device--essentially a modified B83 nuclear bomb--to stop an asteroid? They could probably get away with using a much smaller device in the 15-20 kT range, where the shockwave of the detonation generates enough power to "nudge" the asteroid to a new, safer orbit.
Except for one thing: streaming Internet radio only works if you pretty much close to standing still (e.g., if you are at a Wi-Fi "hotspot" or if your device is directly connected to broadband connction). If you driving--especially on long-distance trips--satellite radio is a better choice, especially west of the Mississippi River, where far fewer metropolitan areas exist.
2.) 256kbs is hardly what I would call 'excellent sound quality.' Decent for headphones for a fairly broad scale of musical style? Sure. 320kbs non-variable is 'moderately acceptible' on a 7.1 surround sound system. FLAC, APE, (lossless) are 'excellent sound quality.' I have yet to see lossless tracks for sale on amazon.
I would agree we do prefer lossless compression formats such as Apple Lossless or FLAC for best sound quality, but between the facts that:
1) Few portable music players support the FLAC format "out of the box."
2) Apple Lossless is not really that usable outside of an iPod.
3) Apple Lossless or FLAC formats take up a lot of storage space on a per minute basis.
You can forget about downloadable albums in FLAC or Apple Lossless formats from a major retail site anytime soon.
Amazon has go to with the solution that all portable music players can use and also not tie up the broadband connection downloading very large music files. As such, they did an excellent compromise with the 256 kbps variable bit rate MP3 format, which sounds very good even on most home stereo systems. I do think, though since server storage space costs very little money nowadays, Amazon should offer an option to download the file in unlocked 256 kbps variable bit rate AAC format, since iPods represent the vast majority of portable music players out there and many newer portable music players can play back unlocked AAC files.
Thank you very much for mentioning the Amazon MP3 store! :-)
In short, Amazon's MP3 store is the first truly viable alternative the iTunes Music Store for these these reasons:
1) The cost in many cases is much lower than iTMS on a per-song and per-album basis.
2) Amazon encodes their MP3's using the LAME 3.97 encoder with 256 kbps variable bit rate encoding, which results in excellent sound quality that is almost the same as the uncompressed CD original.
3) Because the MP3 files have no DRM restrictions, that means no hassles copying the music with third-party programs to your portable music player.
4) Amazon's MP3 downloader program automatically puts the playlist into either Windows Media Player 11.0 or iTunes, which means easy syncing with your favorite portable music player that uses these programs to copy music to your player.
It's small wonder why I've bought several albums through the Amazon MP3 store and are searching for more albums to download. That explains why older music stores that use DRM restrictions are rapidly falling by the wayside.
Here's the problem: electric public utilities are designed NOT for distributed power generation today.
However, the technology is starting to come in place that will allow for distributed power generation in the next 20-30 years, especially with the anticipation of rapid drops in the cost of solar panels for home use now that nanotechnology could cut the cost by a factor of eight or more and the arrival of battery storage units using carbon nanotube supercapacitors. That will allow home users to sell their excess power to other users who really need it easily.
That was great, but Opera Software's decision to charge for a full-featured version without intruding ads up until 2005 severely cut its marketshare compared to IE (which shipped as part of Windows since Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2) and Firefox (which was always free to use). If Opera Software had decided to make its browser truly "free" in 2003 its marketshare would be vastly larger, that's to be sure.
The biggest reason why Opera never got "traction" among Windows and MacOS users was that up until 2005, you couldn't get a full-featured version that was truly "free" (and that meant no ads either!). Meanwhile, IE came as part of Windows since Windows 95 OEM Service Release 2, and of course Firefox has always been free to download (the "free as bheer" thing is really enticing in this case).
Sure, Opera invented a lot of the features we take on IE 7.0 and Firefox 3.0.x for granted, but because of the price issue Opera was never really taken seriously as a competitor to IE and Firefox.
The AMD Athlon was a superior CPU over Intel's Prescott core Pentium 4 because 1) the Athlon's CPU core was a more modern design and 2) it ran WAY cooler than the Pentium 4 CPU's of that period.
But once Intel struck back with the Core and Core 2 Duo CPU's with its cooler-running technology borrowed from the Pentium III-M CPU plus a new CPU core, Intel got back its technological lead that it has yet to relinquish.
Actually, the Conroe-core CPU did borrow a lot from the design of the Pentium III-M, especially in the way it did power management to keep the CPU running cool. But the result was perhaps Intel's best CPU since the 80486DX.
Actually, the smartest move Intel did this decade was to drop all further development of the Prescott-core Pentium 4 (which was running WAY too hot) and to base its CPU designs on the excellent Pentium III-M CPU, which was a fast, very cool-running core to start with (after all, it was designed specifically for laptop applications).
The result was the Conroe-core series of CPU's, which single-handedly got Intel back its technological edge that it has yet to relinquish.
If you have a machine built in the past year with a CPU that has more than one CPU core, why bother with Windows XP. I'm using an HP Pavilion a6400f consumer desktop computer that has an Intel Pentium Dual-Core E2200 CPU (essentially a Core 2 Duo with only 1 MB L2 cache), 3 GB of RAM, 500 GB SATA-300 HD, and onboard Intel G33 graphics with no problems whatsoever, so I'm stumped. (shrug)
I'm using Windows Vista Home Premium (SP1) on my recently-bought HP Pavilion a6400f and I have no real significant issues at all with the machine--it's a modicum of stability and even the pre-installed software works quite well, Firefox 3.0 (now 3.0.1) works great, and Windows Update works very well with effects on installed software. Did I miss something from all the detractors?
I remember watching History Channel's Mega Disasters and one episode they talked about the possibility of a gigantic landslide from the southeastern slope of Mt. Etna during an eruption around 6000 BC, which may have caused substantial tsunami damage in much of the eastern Mediterranean shoreline. In a related vein, when the island of Thera erupted around 1630 BC, the eruption caused the center of the island to implode, which caused a massive inrush of seawater and triggering off a massive tsunami that may have wiped out the Minoan civilization on the north coast of Crete.
As such, the dismissals of the a potential gigantic landslide westwards from the Cumbre Vieja on La Palma island are dangerously misguided. If that landslide triggered by an volcano eruption is a big one, we could see suddenly many millions of tons of soil and rock suddenly rush into the Atlantic, and that could result in a massive tsunami that could be as high as 30 meters when it makes landfall along the east coast of the USA and Canada. The amount of damage would be shocking, to say the least.
Phoenix, not likely for wind power but definitely a candidate for several large-scale solar power farms near the city due to its many sunny days.
Actually, there are two places in the western Great Plains where large scale wind farms are practical, mostly because of the relatively short transmission distances to major customers: western Texas and eastern Colorado.
Why eastern Colorado? Because they don't need long distances of transmission cables to transmit wind power from the wind farms there back to the Boulder-Denver-Colorado Springs metropolitan corridor.