15.8 is not "much older" than 14.3 billion years. It's only about 10% older. This is just a tweak. For a long time, astronomers disagreed about the Hubble age by a factor of two or more, and probably some still do.
It sounds like you've borrowed money you don't need for a year or two, and now you want to invest it. That can be risky. Some conservative principles:
Risk. Don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
Time horizon. If you really need the money within a year or two, do not invest them in anything riskier than a money market fund, a bank CD, etc. The market can fluctuate abruptly. Over the long run, you can get good returns, but in the short run you can lose a lot.
Diversify. If you want to be in the stock market with a part of your funds, consider a low cost mutual fund, such as one of the Vanguard funds.
If you're just starting out, get into investments slowly, and plan to take some time watching the markets, reading, seeking good opinion, etc. There's a lot to learn.
Good luck!
Re:And they said Internet killed the Radio Amateur
on
Own the Last Mile
·
· Score: 1
Yes, ham radio exists and has lots of new high-tech directions. Unfortunately, for the/. crowd (and even more for the general Internet community), there are limitations to what you (we) can do in ham radio compared with the Internet.
Amateur radio is a licensed service, meaning that a non-trivial (though pretty easy for/.-ers?) exam is required. This will always keep out the general public -- either a good or bad thing depending on point of view. Some folks would like to see licensing diluted to the level of Citizens Band or GMRS, i.e., widely ignored and no technical content anyway, but most hams want to keep up a reasonable entry barrier to ensure some level of motivation and technical and operational competence.
The other point is that the amateur radio service is by law non-commercial, meaning that no one can be paid for providing communications services. There is some debate whether you as an individual ham are allowed to "order pizza" (or use Amazon.com?) using your own radio. Certainly, no business could use the amateur bands. That rules out a very big chunk of Internet traffic.
A lot of computer experimenter work uses WiFi technology - which is an unlicensed mode without the ham radio restrictions. (WiFi frequencies overlap a ham allocation, so you can use WiFi gear as part of a ham licensed network if you want.) There is some neat extreme ham-like WiFi.
With my ham station, I can routinely communicate digitally around the world at 31 bps (keyboard to keyboard)and 50 watts of power, even at sunspot minimum. No ISP, no infrastructure dependencies! It's a gas.
It's much easier to wipe & restore a virtual machine. VMware's system images, for example, can be downloaded and you're up and running without any configuration. The VM supervisor can be shrunk down so that it only provides for network communications and virtual device support, and the end user never sees it.
If the un-named government agency had just one or a few standard desktop images, this should be a piece of cake.
Ghost and ISO distributions (on CD/DVD) are similar, but less elegant IMO.
Understood. The test is whether they will be willing to encrypt all your files on their servers and let you have the only key. In any case, they can index or scarf your e-mail between SMTP reception and encrypted storage, or on the way out to your browser.
Sounds like a loser if you're reasonably paranoid. On the other hand, how many in-house e-mail operations are carefully managed for security and legal liability?
All digital formats are inherently lossy. So the question is, what is the critical bitrate?
Analog is "lossy" too. Loss, the way people talk about it, is just a kind of distortion. If what comes into your ears is not a faithful copy (maybe scaled to higher or lower volume) of what you would hear at a recording session, there is distortion. Microphones, amps, analog or digital recording, speakers - they all distort to one degree or another.
The distortion you get in mp3's or other lossy codecs has its own character, especially at lower bit rates. Some people prefer "triode" or "vinyl" sound/distortion. No arguing about taste.
Maybe somebody will come up with "mp3 rock" using undersampled codecs for musical effect. You saw it here first.
When hybrids are scarce, and there are waiting lists, you are making no net contribution to anything by buying one. The car will be sold to someone else, and the environment gets its help.
Let some other eager person enjoy the bleeding edge!
When the hybrids become plentiful (and more mature), I'll take a look.
It's not just about registration, although that's important. Why do people think that a single linear "namespace" (of IPv6 addresses) is the right way to describe the universe? Haven't we learned to encapsulate complexity in manageable chunks?
Why do all the toasters in the world need to be able to address all the VOIP phones? Do 100 million PCs need a path to my printer? Anybody who wants to get at my device should address my NAT box first and I'll decide if we want to talk.
If IPv4 had been designed to facilitate the NAT process well, we might not be talking about v6.
Re:Which way is it turning
on
Deep in the Core
·
· Score: 2, Informative
It would be a stable orbit, except this is a pretty unusual situation. It's in a pretty dense neighborhood, so the star may interact with other stars or other matter. Such collisions will often take energy out of the orbit. Also, as seen with orbiting pulsars, the star loses some energy due to gravitational radiation. There could be magnetic fields that put a brake on things over long periods of time. If the star gets too close, tidal distortion becomes significant.
There are plenty of forces that could cause the star to spiral in. The calculations are left to the reader. I am sure people will be watching for changes in the orbit.
The simple answer is that Dell figures it makes more money this way. They have some fancy pricing algorithms that adjust prices very frequently depending on all the data that they know (and you don't).. Details of which models are selling well, what their suppliers are charging this week, what their inventory is, and not least, how "price elastic" different classes of customers are.
They are banking that most customers have not nearly enough information to find the best value, by comparing all the different models and options and by checking all the different entry routes into the system (personal, small business, etc.).
It's like airline seat pricing, another great example of free market exuberance. (Look where it's getting them.)
> Although I'm sure that Google could do this, its not clear that > Google will want to do this. Where's the money?
Where's the money in free email? Same issue.
Google's plan may be to eventually capture all your documents and email and "workflow" on their servers, thereby tying you permanently to their world, exposing you to paid adverts and other paid services as they wish. They get total access for data mining.
Once you're into Gmail and Goffice, just try getting out. It's not going to be easy.
Hopefully, most corporate users are smart enough not to entrust a 3rd party with the crown jewels. But I don't think personal users have that perspective.
In my experience in academic computing support, one of the biggest headaches is license management on Windows and Macs. We tend to have lots of different software packages installed in ad-hoc seats or small networks. Each one may want a dongle or a dedicated server environment. Each one has different contractual terms about student vs faculty vs research use. Etc.
All this, as I see it, is a pure waste of scarce resources. It is somewhat alleviated by sitewide licensing of a few products, but even these are not easy to administer. The whole scene is like the U.S. medical or tax system -- value is being delivered, but the administrative overhead is huge. All the costs of compliance are passed on to the end users and institutions.
What a difference with Linux and OSS! Easy licensing is a big plus and it's not well enough appreciated.
I recently benchmarked my Treo 650 on Sprint's "fast" service. Downloaded at about 100 kilobits/sec. We can get that in CT for about $65/month unlimited. (Voice, too, of course.) I believe you can run an IP connection from your PC through the Treo, but I haven't verified that. That would work about the same as the Sprint PC plugin card, I think.
Sometimes this service might be the right choice for your main IP connection, if you don't have DSL or CATV options, but the main reason for IP over cellphone technology is mobility.
Doesn't matter. You can wait a few hundred years to do the publicity. If you want the best T traveler to non-T traveler ratio, don't publicize in the present at all.
That's why you punch sequence numbers in columns 73-80 - so you can put them back in order. Writing a diagonal stripe across the edge of the deck helps, too.
I can relate to your story. But you've got to be more positive: you had 15 solid days of adventure, learning, and personal growth that would never have happened if you'd gone the easy Windows/Mac way.
We just bought an Acura TL, and Bluetooth for hands-free telephone was an attractive feature. This model does not have a GPS nav. system, but it does have audio response and it does show cell-related messages on the dash panel.
There are other digital inputs for the car. It has XM satellite radio. The XM stream has the ability to disable the radio. Don't know if it has a path into other vehicle systems.
It's bad enough even with my pedestrian Athlon XP 2000+. Hard to get enough cooling without too much noise. The Linux "athcool" feature is a great help.
I need performance, same as anybody. Mainly for video, signal processing (ham radio), and running yum.:-)
The power is all waste, and it translates to energy cost and lots of other nasties:
More power means either higher temperatures (shorter lifetime for all electronics) and/or more airflow (noise) or exotic cooling technologies (water, heat pipes).
I'm mystified that system vendors don't push livable green computers -- low noise, limited dust-bunny attraction, nice to look at. This is really important your living space, but not in your average server room.
Apple does pretty well, and that helps to justify their price point. The media controllers might be on the right track, too. Remind me why I roll my own boxes and hassle with Fedora updates...?
Slashdot Mirror
As a radio amateur (old school, 20 words per minute Morse), I would be very happy to key in my password entirely on the "J" key.
Of course, they get to correlate your searches and purchasing habits, but they do pay you for it.
If the universe is 180 gigayears across, but 15 gy old, that just means that many parts of the universe cannot "see" each other.
15.8 is not "much older" than 14.3 billion years. It's only about 10% older. This is just a tweak. For a long time, astronomers disagreed about the Hubble age by a factor of two or more, and probably some still do.
It sounds like you've borrowed money you don't need for a year or two, and now you want to invest it. That can be risky. Some conservative principles:
Risk. Don't invest more than you can afford to lose.
Time horizon. If you really need the money within a year or two, do not invest them in anything riskier than a money market fund, a bank CD, etc. The market can fluctuate abruptly. Over the long run, you can get good returns, but in the short run you can lose a lot.
Diversify. If you want to be in the stock market with a part of your funds, consider a low cost mutual fund, such as one of the Vanguard funds.
If you're just starting out, get into investments slowly, and plan to take some time watching the markets, reading, seeking good opinion, etc. There's a lot to learn.
Good luck!
Yes, ham radio exists and has lots of new high-tech directions. Unfortunately, for the /. crowd (and even more for the general Internet community), there are limitations to what you (we) can do in ham radio compared with the Internet.
Amateur radio is a licensed service, meaning that a non-trivial (though pretty easy for /.-ers?) exam is required. This will always keep out the general public -- either a good or bad thing depending on point of view. Some folks would like to see licensing diluted to the level of Citizens Band or GMRS, i.e., widely ignored and no technical content anyway, but most hams want to keep up a reasonable entry barrier to ensure some level of motivation and technical and operational competence.
The other point is that the amateur radio service is by law non-commercial, meaning that no one can be paid for providing communications services. There is some debate whether you as an individual ham are allowed to "order pizza" (or use Amazon.com?) using your own radio. Certainly, no business could use the amateur bands. That rules out a very big chunk of Internet traffic.
A lot of computer experimenter work uses WiFi technology - which is an unlicensed mode without the ham radio restrictions. (WiFi frequencies overlap a ham allocation, so you can use WiFi gear as part of a ham licensed network if you want.) There is some neat extreme ham-like WiFi.
With my ham station, I can routinely communicate digitally around the world at 31 bps (keyboard to keyboard)and 50 watts of power, even at sunspot minimum. No ISP, no infrastructure dependencies! It's a gas.
Further reading at www.arrl.org and Wikipedia.
-Martin, AA6E
If the un-named government agency had just one or a few standard desktop images, this should be a piece of cake.
Ghost and ISO distributions (on CD/DVD) are similar, but less elegant IMO.
Sounds like a loser if you're reasonably paranoid. On the other hand, how many in-house e-mail operations are carefully managed for security and legal liability?
Analog is "lossy" too. Loss, the way people talk about it, is just a kind of distortion. If what comes into your ears is not a faithful copy (maybe scaled to higher or lower volume) of what you would hear at a recording session, there is distortion. Microphones, amps, analog or digital recording, speakers - they all distort to one degree or another.
The distortion you get in mp3's or other lossy codecs has its own character, especially at lower bit rates. Some people prefer "triode" or "vinyl" sound/distortion. No arguing about taste.
Maybe somebody will come up with "mp3 rock" using undersampled codecs for musical effect. You saw it here first.
When hybrids are scarce, and there are waiting lists, you are making no net contribution to anything by buying one. The car will be sold to someone else, and the environment gets its help.
Let some other eager person enjoy the bleeding edge!
When the hybrids become plentiful (and more mature), I'll take a look.
Why do all the toasters in the world need to be able to address all the VOIP phones? Do 100 million PCs need a path to my printer? Anybody who wants to get at my device should address my NAT box first and I'll decide if we want to talk.
If IPv4 had been designed to facilitate the NAT process well, we might not be talking about v6.
It would be a stable orbit, except this is a pretty unusual situation. It's in a pretty dense neighborhood, so the star may interact with other stars or other matter. Such collisions will often take energy out of the orbit. Also, as seen with orbiting pulsars, the star loses some energy due to gravitational radiation. There could be magnetic fields that put a brake on things over long periods of time. If the star gets too close, tidal distortion becomes significant.
There are plenty of forces that could cause the star to spiral in. The calculations are left to the reader. I am sure people will be watching for changes in the orbit.
The simple answer is that Dell figures it makes more money this way. They have some fancy pricing algorithms that adjust prices very frequently depending on all the data that they know (and you don't).. Details of which models are selling well, what their suppliers are charging this week, what their inventory is, and not least, how "price elastic" different classes of customers are.
They are banking that most customers have not nearly enough information to find the best value, by comparing all the different models and options and by checking all the different entry routes into the system (personal, small business, etc.).
It's like airline seat pricing, another great example of free market exuberance. (Look where it's getting them.)
I signed onto gmail about 6 months ago, about when they upped their quota to 2 GB. How fine!
Except since then, I've accumulated 172 MB of mail and the Gmail quota has gone up in steps to 2650 MB.
I am falling behind by nearly 100 MB a month. Help!
> Although I'm sure that Google could do this, its not clear that
> Google will want to do this. Where's the money?
Where's the money in free email? Same issue.
Google's plan may be to eventually capture all your documents and email and "workflow" on their servers, thereby tying you permanently to their world, exposing you to paid adverts and other paid services as they wish. They get total access for data mining.
Once you're into Gmail and Goffice, just try getting out. It's not going to be easy.
Hopefully, most corporate users are smart enough not to entrust a 3rd party with the crown jewels. But I don't think personal users have that perspective.
All this, as I see it, is a pure waste of scarce resources. It is somewhat alleviated by sitewide licensing of a few products, but even these are not easy to administer. The whole scene is like the U.S. medical or tax system -- value is being delivered, but the administrative overhead is huge. All the costs of compliance are passed on to the end users and institutions.
What a difference with Linux and OSS! Easy licensing is a big plus and it's not well enough appreciated.
Sometimes this service might be the right choice for your main IP connection, if you don't have DSL or CATV options, but the main reason for IP over cellphone technology is mobility.
Doesn't matter. You can wait a few hundred years to do the publicity. If you want the best T traveler to non-T traveler ratio, don't publicize in the present at all.
That's why you punch sequence numbers in columns 73-80 - so you can put them back in order. Writing a diagonal stripe across the edge of the deck helps, too.
I've been relaying the whole internet to space for a couple of years now over my WiFi. Added a little WEP for challenge.
I can relate to your story. But you've got to be more positive: you had 15 solid days of adventure, learning, and personal growth that would never have happened if you'd gone the easy Windows/Mac way.
There are other digital inputs for the car. It has XM satellite radio. The XM stream has the ability to disable the radio. Don't know if it has a path into other vehicle systems.
I need performance, same as anybody. Mainly for video, signal processing (ham radio), and running yum. :-)
More power means either higher temperatures (shorter lifetime for all electronics) and/or more airflow (noise) or exotic cooling technologies (water, heat pipes).
I'm mystified that system vendors don't push livable green computers -- low noise, limited dust-bunny attraction, nice to look at. This is really important your living space, but not in your average server room.
Apple does pretty well, and that helps to justify their price point. The media controllers might be on the right track, too. Remind me why I roll my own boxes and hassle with Fedora updates...?
ICU's are found in hospitals.