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User: shamir_k

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  1. Yes, but what are the similarities? on Cloned Cat Not a 'Carbon Copy' · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Even the coat pattern of the two cats is different!! Then what exactly are the similarities. I have heard stories of human twins leading very similar lives. Genese definitely do have a big effect on personality and behaviour. So the interesting question is : what are the similarities between two cats with the same DNA, but very different environments (and ages). Could shed some new and interesting light on the old nurture vs. nature arguements. Even for humans .

  2. Where pay phones won't vanish on Requiem for the Disappearing Pay Phone · · Score: 1

    Places:

    1. Large parts of the world where there is no cell-phone coverage, and where people live and travel
    2. Places where a particular cell-phone may not work, even though there is coverage. Like when you take a CDMA phone to a GSM only area or vice-versa. Or when you don't have roaming. (eg. Airports)
    3. Places where people make long calls, don't have land-lines of their own, and pay-phones are significantly cheaper than cell-phones. ( eg. University towns in the developing world)
    4. Places where most people don't have cell-phones.
    5. Places where most people don't have phones.

    This sounds like a large part of the earth to me. Guess pay-phones will be around for a long time, even if they are not on every street-corner in the developed world.

  3. The wheel comes full circle?? on CDMA 2000 1x Comes to India · · Score: 3, Interesting

    About India :
    India - population 1,000,000,000 , 60 % rural
    Middle class - 300,000,000 (mostly in the cities)
    Average cell-phone acquistion cost Rs. 4500 ( $90)
    Average cell-phone charges Rs. 2 per minute ( $0.04)

    Reliance :
    Allocated Rs. 200,000,000,000 ($ 4.5 billion) at the end of 2000 to lay optic fibre throughout the country within 2 years.
    They are the largest busines group in India and hav revenues in excess Rs. 60,000,000,000 ($ 1.5 Billion) from their existing petrochemical industries. And a fortune 500 company.

    The plan is simple, invest huge amounts of money (which nobody else can) to rollout a wireless network across 600 cities (in Phase I!!). reduce charges to the point where nobody else can compete, and provide cutting edge technology. Subsidise handset costs to persuade users to agree to long-term plans. Provide dirt-cheap call rates (even in Indian rupees) so that usage is high. Watch the revenues roll in from a tech-savvy and tech-starved country.

    I can testify that there is a lot of excitement in India over this launch. Many, many people are already planning to switch from their existing GSM services. Remember, this launch is aimed at the 300 million middle class, who can well afford this. They are alos planning to introduce video conferencing and other 3G technologies within a year! Large parts of India may get 3G before the US!!

    Seems that the world is leaving the US behind in adopting wireless tech. The best part is that the Java services on these CDMA phones is being set-up by a US company (which I will not name), which is starting a development center in India for that purpose. The wheel coming full circle ??? :))

    Should I also mention that I submitted this last week?

    Remember, every 6th person is an Indian.

  4. Re:Too little too late?? on SGI launches R16000 · · Score: 1

    The original post seemed to imply that the chip would be useful for general purpose servers, like web or file servers. I think application availability is very important for such purposes. Otherwise its relegated to addressing a niche market. Binary compatibility with existing apps isn't worth much if that existing app base is small to begin with. The niche market for these chips seems to be the graphics/video editing industry. And as I mentioned, it seems to be losing ground to Linux, BSD and Windows even there. For SGI this really does seem to be a case of too little too late.

  5. Too little too late?? on SGI launches R16000 · · Score: 1

    How many people use SGI workstations anymore anyway? The specs for the new chip sound good, but what about application support? Its no use if this is a fast server, if my apps don't run on it. It seems to me that SGI is used mainly in the graphics industry, and there it seems to be losing ground quickly to Linux and BSD based solutions.