Norway is to Sweden as Canada is to the United States. It is a social dichotomy arising from a national classification, not unique to Canada's relationship to the USA. Norwegians always seem to play second fiddle to the Swede's, and in that I found that this phenomenon is not a characteristic of Canadian culture per se, but of cultures that play major but subservent roles to a "parent" culture.
Verify its value through academia and protect it with non disclosure agreements. If it is the rare case that it is of original "value", let the NSA know. They and their bretheren may even pay you to sit on it. Always let your intelligence agency know what you are doing. The alternative could be costly in unforeseeable ways.
You may want to look at that FDA site. They mentioned changing eyesight: You required a change in your contact lens or glasses prescription in the past year. This is called refractive instability.
See: http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/LASIK/when.htm
I have no authoratitive opinion on this subject whatsoever, but I would heed the advice of the FDA insofar as it urges you to acquire professional and unbiased opinion.
I don't think anyone disputes that evolution *can* happen. The big question we have is whether or not evolution is responsible for our presence, and in particular if it is a reasonable and plausible explanation for our existence. That it can be an explanation does not mean it is.
The Creationists argument is that God created the universe, which cannot be disproved because God is omnipotent in that universe and hence can contrive existence and truth. Many Creationists wish to prove their conjecture, however, by disproving every other plausible explanation, such as evolutionary theory.
Which strikes me as remarkably short sighted; I would tend to believe that a creationist would understand that their deity is riddled with enigmas with plausible explanations, and fully capable of providing alternative theories to creationism itself, if for nothing else than plausible deniability. Proof of God would undermine the need for faith.
Such as the ability to attach hand-drawn sketches or vector diagrams to instant messaging?
Multiple people editing concurrently one multimedia document?
Multiple keyboards for one machine, for extreme programming / pair programming, for example?
Desks that are actually the right height?
Wireless monitors & monitor stations? (let's not get into security with that, though!)
Signed and encrypted documents, changes, and messages? What about that whole DRM thing? Left and right hand at MS marketing not talking? (they are pretty big)
There is a subtle philosophical difference between protecting the copyright of GNU and that of music and movies:
The spirit of GNU is to provide freedom to the copyrighted material. As such, protecting software under GNU copyright is protecting freedom, and intrinsicly in the interest of the common person such as you and I.
The spirit of the copyright of music and movies is protecting ownership for profit. Protecting those copyrights is all too often protecting the interests of transnational conglomerates, and typically the common person has no direct vested interest in that transnational's profits.
Not to say that violating copyright is right or wrong for any reason. But certainly the interests that we have as free individuals are different depending upon that particular copyright, and as such our perception of "right and wrong" is not founded in a uniform copyright. The spirit of the copyright status is very different, from a moral point of view.
Not all copyright is created equal in the eyes of the consumer.:)
re. 1: Logitech currently has a proprietary version of WEP that is 128 bit, because there is no current standard for highly secure WEP. I am sure Microsoft will follow suit with their own proprietary exclusive WEP, although for different reasons.
re. 2: Microsoft probably has an exclusive manufacturing deal with a provider such that the only way to get a Microsoft type mouse is through Microsoft. Outsourcing like this is done for many thing; IBM manufacturers PowerPC chips, yet they are called Motorola. It is still a Motorola PC, because Motorola owns the schematics. The exclusivity deal of Microsoft's no doubt is functionally and legally equivalent to Motorola's IBM fab deal. This allows Microsoft and Motorola to choose different manufacturers for "their" products.
I underestimated you on two points. My two prima facie judgements are countermanded by the following two statements: I debate on the Internet for the purpose of self-education and hypocrite that I am, I download fansubbed animes. I do it fully believing that I am committing theft. The latter is colloquial and inconsequential, notable only because I did not predict it. The prior is the fundamental reflection of intelligent life on the internet; stating it is a good sign of its existence.
Your choice of words improved over the original post I replied to, marking a change in my perception, but not my judgement or "heat" of my replies. Your use of language is often too strong to reflect genuine interest in self-education. In particular statements like "I don't flame or troll" typically indicate thematic delusions or histrionics, particularly when they lack equally strong supportive context. Few logical circles are self-reinforcing to the point of ever using definite words like "do", "are", "is" and "must", and hence few conversations warrant their usage, and fewer open minded conversations tolerate them.
For example, it would have been easier to empathize had you, for that particular statement, said "I never write with the intention to flame or troll", or more in the tone you said it in "According to the definitions I noted, nothing I write can be called a flame or a troll". Half the battle is keeping the enemy's mind open. Then you sneak in and stab their ideas in the back or pull the carpet out from under them. Flairing out the peacock feathers will alert people to your intention to assault their ideas. I call it dissonance. Its antithesis is resonance.
I am glad you enjoyed the debate, and I am glad that you provided it with calm resolution.
Regarding:
This note is for directed not, I expect, as you Chasuk, do not seem to hold sway over your bias. For the other readers, it does make musical context, though.
I'll admit that I don't comprehend that sentence.:-)
Start with: "This note is for not" (ie. it's in vain) Then: "This note is for directed not" (ie. it's in vain to whom it's directed) But "directed" begs justification, which follows: "I expect, as you Chasuk, do not seem to hold sway over your bias" Meaning "For Chasuk, this note is in vain, as..."
Which, as negative and hypocritical as it might sound, seems accurate... albeit convoluted.:)
Lol. Very astute, re. flaming hypocrisy. Mine was a cognitive contrival in response to your dismissal of alternative opinions. (ie. the "Nazi" argument; all other opinions are inferior) You seem to have retained your hand waiving technique in calling yourself a "non-flamer" and indicating my flaming "demonstrably". Good reference to Trolls, though.
First, I do not admire Adam Smith. I am merely aware of him.
You do not contradict my entire argument. In fact, you don't even address my argument. If anything, you support it:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages.
Substitute the words producer, director, and stakeholder for butcher, brewer, and baker, and it has the same weight. If you are really a stakeholder in New Line Cinema, you will already be paying close attention to this simple fact.
Self-interest is a fundamental aspect of Smith's capitalism. Now, extend that to the millions of people out there who are well trained and bred consumers. They can download movies for free (my model (A)), or they can pay to go to a theatre (model (B)) or rent a DVD/VHS (models (C)/(D), resp.). The forces that act upon them, in the Foucault sense of "force", are money, time, etc., summed up as self-interest. If in their evaluation of self interest they find it "better" to download using non-remuneration model (A), then they will do so.
In the context of capitalism, competition is not just between products but between models. If model (A) is superior, in the self-interest of consumers, to (B), (C), and (D), then it has, by definition, a competitive advantage. If model (A) does not produce revenue to support the products of its distributions, then the products of those distributions must rely on amortization over other models such as (B), (C), (D), and (E) (peripherial products, eg. toys). If the sum of (B), (C), (D), and (E) is not enough to remunerate in the amount invested, then the producer will suffer what is known as a "loss".
If enough producers suffer a "loss", in a pandemic sort of way, then the industry will become unsustainable. It will die. I believe this is capitalism at its best! From the ashes of a dying or dead industry will arise something to replace it entirely - maybe better, maybe worse - who knows, but different. It doesn't matter what. Death and birth is a very encouraging and natural process of all things healthy.
With respect to your argument of "stealing": I am not sold on the idea that it is "stealing". If one sees a movie in theatres, they pay for it. If they had downloaded the movie the night before, is that stealing? By Oxford Dictionary standards, peer to peer digital copying is probably not "stealing" in the semantic sense - there is neither loss nor clandestine means of appropriation. Without loss, there is no theft. The "clandestine means" is a bit trickier, and I am not sold on that either way -- it can be alternatively thought of as "imperceptible appropriation", which quite clearly applies, but not in the sense that you said it.
This note is for directed not, I expect, as you Chasuk, do not seem to hold sway over your bias. For the other readers, it does make musical context, though.
Your epistemological theory of my existence is greatly exaggerated.
Chasuk: You're a bleeding flamer. That is true. Let us talk about what else is true.
(A) There *is* a low resolution, poor audio distribution model that does not remunerate the authors. (B) There *is* a high resolution, excellent audio restricted theatrical distribution model. (C) There *is* a high resolution, excellent audio restricted digital distribution model (DVD). (D) There *is* a high resolution, fair audio analog distribution model (VHS). (E) There *is* an enormous supplemental income from peripheral industries (ie. toys, games).
Now, should (A) become so prolific as to undermine the revenue from models (B),(C),(D), and (E) then in a competitive (ie. capitalist) system they will die. Should the death of models (B), (C), and (D) preclude the death of "blockbusters", so be it. If there is demand for a distribution model that remunerates the authors, one will arise - see Adam Smith's Invisible Hand explanation. Otherwise they die. Those are the rules.
In the case of LOTR, the $325 $US Mil. for *all* *three* *movies* was to a great extent remunerated by the theatrical (B) distribution model and (E) peripherial industries. As such, Peter Jackson, New Line, et al. are not complaining. How do I know this? I am a stakeholder in Ne Line Cinema, so I pay attention.
The distribution under model (A) does not preclude the absence of distribution under (B), (C) and (D). Downloading off the internet is almost more of an advertisement, appealing to a select group of high bandwith, tech savy fans who have the money and will to partake in models (B) and (C) anyway.
Creating restrictions about the potential rise in movie downloading (A) because of its ill effects upon the remuneration models is fundamentally flawed. It assumes too many things, and precludes that this distribution model will not be supplemented with a form of remuneration at some point. Such suggestions are folly - the immorality of torturing a sensible capitalism for the sake of an unsustainable industry is far greater than the immorality of deviantly pressuring technology forward. Unless you are a luddite. Feel free to put in a petition for Telegram and Telgraph while you are at it. Your arguments kept them alive for decades beyond their viability.
Sometimes I naively and happily believe that people like you do not exist. Times like this make the brutal truth of the ignorance of those around me painfully conscious.
Are they talking about universal remote controls? The Philips Pronto TSU2000 and VAR derivatives, like the Yamaha RAV-2000 and Marantz RC5000i are not "in research" products - they are current universal remotes with a user defined interface. If you had a Microwave that accepted IR controls, these would work with it, and quite nicely so. If they are interested in bringing a universal remote to the market, they have a tough act to follow.
Or are they researching controlling everything in the normal house? Like using Bluetooth wireless technology, or using JNDI as a naming and control mechanism? (Well, they used X-10, but that's besides the point) If that is their focus, I wish them luck in bringing the industry into a situation where they both care and cooperate with standards.
They seem to be doing everything with RF (not IR) wireless technology, but that is both uncommon and unsupported on current and legacy systems. I don't know how they plan on supporting, in a cost effective way, IR and wireless in a single remote, as well as all the wireless devices you would have to deploy around the house to justify the cost of the remote. Perhaps in a market of sufficient scale this would be viable.
The first Canadian broadband services were offered in New Brunswick and Saskatachewan. In particular, Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) and Saint John (New Brunswick) were the first wired communities, both measuring near the bottom of the Canadian population densities according to Stats Canada.
New Brunswick (71,450 sq km & 900,000 people) and Saskatchewan in particular (591,000 sq km & 1.0 million people) make Maine (56,000 sq km & 1.3 million people) look relatively dense. Yet the broadband capabilities of rural New Brunswick where I live (50,000 population) surpass that of Toronto, not just in cost, but availability, quality of service, and with the recent introduction of broadband cable, choice.
My parents, who live in the sticks of Newfoundland (village population 10000), now have broadband cable for US$25/mo. Sure, it took years for it to get there after I got it here, but they have it, and the majority of the US, which has population densities magnitues higher, have nil prospects for broadband in the next decade.
In Canada, which has nearly twice the geographic area of the US and a tenth the population, I and many of my friends have had 2 MBit DSL for over 4 years now, and now I can get cable modems for 8 MBit for the same price. How much, you ask? US$25.66 per month.
So the argument that "The US is full of big empty spaces and would better compared to Russia or China as far as how many people are connected" is moot since it could be compared to Canada and still be a disgrace to free enterprise. It is a good speculation, though: Korea and Japan do have the benefit of greater density. With the absence of Canada (and Sweden, I might add), the influence of population density might be a more reputable argument for the dearth of US broadband services. But I find it highly suspect to call 'geographic area' a significant factor in broadband rollout in lieu of the successful distribution of broadband in Canada.
More likely, I would speculate, is the presence of public and regulated telecoms in Canada (Bell & subsiduaries) and Japan (Nippon Telegraph & Telecom).
I am not sure why you listed Korea for DSL rollout; last I heard, the North was ignoring us, and the South was very rural except for Seoul and a few other cities. Any Koreans available to clarify that?
Your reference to "quantum tunneling" is the closest thing I could find to what I was thinking of, too. It was not under this name that I thought of it. I do recall discussing it as if it were common knowledge, though. Perhaps it was just colloqial knowledge.
Nevertheless it is good to know that my assertion may not have been a figment of my imagination, or worse - an assumption. It has left me with a bit of an enigma.
I was quite sure that X-Rays did escape the event horizon. However: http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/faq /black_hol e/bhole-38.html indicates otherwise. I have seen and agreed with theories that support my assertion of a not-so-infalliable event horizon, but it is not so easy to find a reference now, and it is probably an outdated notion or just out of style in the colloquial peer-review discourse.
I don't have any evidence or reference to back up my assertion aside from said heresay, so I highly suggest you extend the waiver that comes with a Slashdot Poll to my comments on X-Rays escaping a black hole.
It has been shown that X-Rays escape black holes, and by doing so "must" travel faster than light. There are other plausible explanations (wherein "must" is "could"), but this one serves my statement with some peer-reviewed merit.
I am not sure that I implied that nothing can travel faster than light (since I am quite certain some things, eg. X-Rays, can, at least practically if not theoretically:) ), and I would agree with your assessment.
Note that, in this case, by approaching the speed of light, your gravitational "depth" increases. Also note that such speed is relative, but really only the important relative component is to your initial speed to which the speed of light is measured, and the celesital objects to which you have affinity.
I believe that travelling to the past would merely let us perform certain travelling at speeds faster than light.
Or, put another way, the time required at maximum velocity to return to your point of origin is at least the amount of time you travelled back in time. I believe you must sacrifice time or sacrifice position.
Position may or may not be in the way we expect; I suspect it is based upon your "depth" in the gravitational field, and as such, you would travel towards or away from heavy celestial bodies, such as the sun. Travelling towards them requires velocity. By the same token, you can temporally return to the beginning of the universe if you travel far enough away from the centre of it (assuming that the gravitational "depth" continues to decrease with distance, and the exponential energy increase required to travel as such is not unreasonable)...
Binary stars and other equilibrium comes to mind, but I conjecture that "free" time travel in perfect equilibrium would be impossible; your relationship with time can only be altered in respect to changes in the gravitational depth. However, they may have.. quirks of worthy pursuit.
Ah, alas: the Athlon is happy at 65 oC, and will run right up to 75 oC, and not cook until 85 oC, whereas the Intel will cook off at 65 oC. This is not to say that the heat is irrelevent; I say it is not such a bad thing for the CPU microcosm itself, for the things around it I cannot say anything.
Slashdot Mirror
Norway is to Sweden as Canada is to the United States. It is a social dichotomy arising from a national classification, not unique to Canada's relationship to the USA. Norwegians always seem to play second fiddle to the Swede's, and in that I found that this phenomenon is not a characteristic of Canadian culture per se, but of cultures that play major but subservent roles to a "parent" culture.
Verify its value through academia and protect it with non disclosure agreements. If it is the rare case that it is of original "value", let the NSA know. They and their bretheren may even pay you to sit on it. Always let your intelligence agency know what you are doing. The alternative could be costly in unforeseeable ways.
You may want to look at that FDA site. They mentioned changing eyesight: You required a change in your contact lens or glasses prescription in the past year. This is called refractive instability.
See:
http://www.fda.gov/cdrh/LASIK/when.htm
I have no authoratitive opinion on this subject whatsoever, but I would heed the advice of the FDA insofar as it urges you to acquire professional and unbiased opinion.
I don't think anyone disputes that evolution *can* happen. The big question we have is whether or not evolution is responsible for our presence, and in particular if it is a reasonable and plausible explanation for our existence. That it can be an explanation does not mean it is.
The Creationists argument is that God created the universe, which cannot be disproved because God is omnipotent in that universe and hence can contrive existence and truth. Many Creationists wish to prove their conjecture, however, by disproving every other plausible explanation, such as evolutionary theory.
Which strikes me as remarkably short sighted; I would tend to believe that a creationist would understand that their deity is riddled with enigmas with plausible explanations, and fully capable of providing alternative theories to creationism itself, if for nothing else than plausible deniability. Proof of God would undermine the need for faith.
Such as the ability to attach hand-drawn sketches or vector diagrams to instant messaging?
Multiple people editing concurrently one multimedia document?
Multiple keyboards for one machine, for extreme programming / pair programming, for example?
Desks that are actually the right height?
Wireless monitors & monitor stations? (let's not get into security with that, though!)
Signed and encrypted documents, changes, and messages? What about that whole DRM thing? Left and right hand at MS marketing not talking? (they are pretty big)
These are things I want and would pay money for.
There is a subtle philosophical difference between protecting the copyright of GNU and that of music and movies:
:)
The spirit of GNU is to provide freedom to the copyrighted material. As such, protecting software under GNU copyright is protecting freedom, and intrinsicly in the interest of the common person such as you and I.
The spirit of the copyright of music and movies is protecting ownership for profit. Protecting those copyrights is all too often protecting the interests of transnational conglomerates, and typically the common person has no direct vested interest in that transnational's profits.
Not to say that violating copyright is right or wrong for any reason. But certainly the interests that we have as free individuals are different depending upon that particular copyright, and as such our perception of "right and wrong" is not founded in a uniform copyright. The spirit of the copyright status is very different, from a moral point of view.
Not all copyright is created equal in the eyes of the consumer.
re. 1: Logitech currently has a proprietary version of WEP that is 128 bit, because there is no current standard for highly secure WEP. I am sure Microsoft will follow suit with their own proprietary exclusive WEP, although for different reasons.
re. 2: Microsoft probably has an exclusive manufacturing deal with a provider such that the only way to get a Microsoft type mouse is through Microsoft. Outsourcing like this is done for many thing; IBM manufacturers PowerPC chips, yet they are called Motorola. It is still a Motorola PC, because Motorola owns the schematics. The exclusivity deal of Microsoft's no doubt is functionally and legally equivalent to Motorola's IBM fab deal. This allows Microsoft and Motorola to choose different manufacturers for "their" products.
That's no moon ... it's a space station.
I agree.
I underestimated you on two points. My two prima facie judgements are countermanded by the following two statements: I debate on the Internet for the purpose of self-education and hypocrite that I am, I download fansubbed animes. I do it fully believing that I am committing theft. The latter is colloquial and inconsequential, notable only because I did not predict it. The prior is the fundamental reflection of intelligent life on the internet; stating it is a good sign of its existence.
Your choice of words improved over the original post I replied to, marking a change in my perception, but not my judgement or "heat" of my replies. Your use of language is often too strong to reflect genuine interest in self-education. In particular statements like "I don't flame or troll" typically indicate thematic delusions or histrionics, particularly when they lack equally strong supportive context. Few logical circles are self-reinforcing to the point of ever using definite words like "do", "are", "is" and "must", and hence few conversations warrant their usage, and fewer open minded conversations tolerate them.
For example, it would have been easier to empathize had you, for that particular statement, said "I never write with the intention to flame or troll", or more in the tone you said it in "According to the definitions I noted, nothing I write can be called a flame or a troll". Half the battle is keeping the enemy's mind open. Then you sneak in and stab their ideas in the back or pull the carpet out from under them. Flairing out the peacock feathers will alert people to your intention to assault their ideas. I call it dissonance. Its antithesis is resonance.
I am glad you enjoyed the debate, and I am glad that you provided it with calm resolution.
Regarding:
I'll admit that I don't comprehend that sentence.
Start with: "This note is for not" (ie. it's in vain)
Then: "This note is for directed not" (ie. it's in vain to whom it's directed)
But "directed" begs justification, which follows: "I expect, as you Chasuk, do not seem to hold sway over your bias"
Meaning "For Chasuk, this note is in vain, as
Which, as negative and hypocritical as it might sound, seems accurate... albeit convoluted.
First, I do not admire Adam Smith. I am merely aware of him.
You do not contradict my entire argument. In fact, you don't even address my argument. If anything, you support it:
Substitute the words producer, director, and stakeholder for butcher, brewer, and baker, and it has the same weight. If you are really a stakeholder in New Line Cinema, you will already be paying close attention to this simple fact.
Self-interest is a fundamental aspect of Smith's capitalism. Now, extend that to the millions of people out there who are well trained and bred consumers. They can download movies for free (my model (A)), or they can pay to go to a theatre (model (B)) or rent a DVD/VHS (models (C)/(D), resp.). The forces that act upon them, in the Foucault sense of "force", are money, time, etc., summed up as self-interest. If in their evaluation of self interest they find it "better" to download using non-remuneration model (A), then they will do so.
In the context of capitalism, competition is not just between products but between models. If model (A) is superior, in the self-interest of consumers, to (B), (C), and (D), then it has, by definition, a competitive advantage. If model (A) does not produce revenue to support the products of its distributions, then the products of those distributions must rely on amortization over other models such as (B), (C), (D), and (E) (peripherial products, eg. toys). If the sum of (B), (C), (D), and (E) is not enough to remunerate in the amount invested, then the producer will suffer what is known as a "loss".
If enough producers suffer a "loss", in a pandemic sort of way, then the industry will become unsustainable. It will die. I believe this is capitalism at its best! From the ashes of a dying or dead industry will arise something to replace it entirely - maybe better, maybe worse - who knows, but different. It doesn't matter what. Death and birth is a very encouraging and natural process of all things healthy.
With respect to your argument of "stealing": I am not sold on the idea that it is "stealing". If one sees a movie in theatres, they pay for it. If they had downloaded the movie the night before, is that stealing? By Oxford Dictionary standards, peer to peer digital copying is probably not "stealing" in the semantic sense - there is neither loss nor clandestine means of appropriation. Without loss, there is no theft. The "clandestine means" is a bit trickier, and I am not sold on that either way -- it can be alternatively thought of as "imperceptible appropriation", which quite clearly applies, but not in the sense that you said it.
This note is for directed not, I expect, as you Chasuk, do not seem to hold sway over your bias. For the other readers, it does make musical context, though.
Your epistemological theory of my existence is greatly exaggerated.
Chasuk: You're a bleeding flamer. That is true. Let us talk about what else is true.
(A) There *is* a low resolution, poor audio distribution model that does not remunerate the authors. (B) There *is* a high resolution, excellent audio restricted theatrical distribution model. (C) There *is* a high resolution, excellent audio restricted digital distribution model (DVD). (D) There *is* a high resolution, fair audio analog distribution model (VHS). (E) There *is* an enormous supplemental income from peripheral industries (ie. toys, games).
Now, should (A) become so prolific as to undermine the revenue from models (B),(C),(D), and (E) then in a competitive (ie. capitalist) system they will die. Should the death of models (B), (C), and (D) preclude the death of "blockbusters", so be it. If there is demand for a distribution model that remunerates the authors, one will arise - see Adam Smith's Invisible Hand explanation. Otherwise they die. Those are the rules.
In the case of LOTR, the $325 $US Mil. for *all* *three* *movies* was to a great extent remunerated by the theatrical (B) distribution model and (E) peripherial industries. As such, Peter Jackson, New Line, et al. are not complaining. How do I know this? I am a stakeholder in Ne Line Cinema, so I pay attention.
The distribution under model (A) does not preclude the absence of distribution under (B), (C) and (D). Downloading off the internet is almost more of an advertisement, appealing to a select group of high bandwith, tech savy fans who have the money and will to partake in models (B) and (C) anyway.
Creating restrictions about the potential rise in movie downloading (A) because of its ill effects upon the remuneration models is fundamentally flawed. It assumes too many things, and precludes that this distribution model will not be supplemented with a form of remuneration at some point. Such suggestions are folly - the immorality of torturing a sensible capitalism for the sake of an unsustainable industry is far greater than the immorality of deviantly pressuring technology forward. Unless you are a luddite. Feel free to put in a petition for Telegram and Telgraph while you are at it. Your arguments kept them alive for decades beyond their viability.
Sometimes I naively and happily believe that people like you do not exist. Times like this make the brutal truth of the ignorance of those around me painfully conscious.
Research?
Are they talking about universal remote controls? The Philips Pronto TSU2000 and VAR derivatives, like the Yamaha RAV-2000 and Marantz RC5000i are not "in research" products - they are current universal remotes with a user defined interface. If you had a Microwave that accepted IR controls, these would work with it, and quite nicely so. If they are interested in bringing a universal remote to the market, they have a tough act to follow.
Or are they researching controlling everything in the normal house? Like using Bluetooth wireless technology, or using JNDI as a naming and control mechanism? (Well, they used X-10, but that's besides the point) If that is their focus, I wish them luck in bringing the industry into a situation where they both care and cooperate with standards.
They seem to be doing everything with RF (not IR) wireless technology, but that is both uncommon and unsupported on current and legacy systems. I don't know how they plan on supporting, in a cost effective way, IR and wireless in a single remote, as well as all the wireless devices you would have to deploy around the house to justify the cost of the remote. Perhaps in a market of sufficient scale this would be viable.
Canada: 9,976,140 sq km
US: 9,629,091 sq km
Terribly sorry; I stand corrected.
This is odd: Stats Canada gives 9,984,670 sq km.. I am not sure where Stats Canada found the extra 8,000 odd sq km.
The first Canadian broadband services were offered in New Brunswick and Saskatachewan. In particular, Saskatoon (Saskatchewan) and Saint John (New Brunswick) were the first wired communities, both measuring near the bottom of the Canadian population densities according to Stats Canada.
New Brunswick (71,450 sq km & 900,000 people) and Saskatchewan in particular (591,000 sq km & 1.0 million people) make Maine (56,000 sq km & 1.3 million people) look relatively dense. Yet the broadband capabilities of rural New Brunswick where I live (50,000 population) surpass that of Toronto, not just in cost, but availability, quality of service, and with the recent introduction of broadband cable, choice.
My parents, who live in the sticks of Newfoundland (village population 10000), now have broadband cable for US$25/mo. Sure, it took years for it to get there after I got it here, but they have it, and the majority of the US, which has population densities magnitues higher, have nil prospects for broadband in the next decade.
In Canada, which has nearly twice the geographic area of the US and a tenth the population, I and many of my friends have had 2 MBit DSL for over 4 years now, and now I can get cable modems for 8 MBit for the same price. How much, you ask? US$25.66 per month.
So the argument that "The US is full of big empty spaces and would better compared to Russia or China as far as how many people are connected" is moot since it could be compared to Canada and still be a disgrace to free enterprise. It is a good speculation, though: Korea and Japan do have the benefit of greater density. With the absence of Canada (and Sweden, I might add), the influence of population density might be a more reputable argument for the dearth of US broadband services. But I find it highly suspect to call 'geographic area' a significant factor in broadband rollout in lieu of the successful distribution of broadband in Canada.
More likely, I would speculate, is the presence of public and regulated telecoms in Canada (Bell & subsiduaries) and Japan (Nippon Telegraph & Telecom).
I am not sure why you listed Korea for DSL rollout; last I heard, the North was ignoring us, and the South was very rural except for Seoul and a few other cities. Any Koreans available to clarify that?
Your reference to "quantum tunneling" is the closest thing I could find to what I was thinking of, too. It was not under this name that I thought of it. I do recall discussing it as if it were common knowledge, though. Perhaps it was just colloqial knowledge.
Nevertheless it is good to know that my assertion may not have been a figment of my imagination, or worse - an assumption. It has left me with a bit of an enigma.
Thanks for the Quantum Tunneling reference.
I was quite sure that X-Rays did escape the event horizon. However:q /black_hol e/bhole-38.html
http://chandra.harvard.edu/resources/fa
indicates otherwise. I have seen and agreed with theories that support my assertion of a not-so-infalliable event horizon, but it is not so easy to find a reference now, and it is probably an outdated notion or just out of style in the colloquial peer-review discourse.
I don't have any evidence or reference to back up my assertion aside from said heresay, so I highly suggest you extend the waiver that comes with a Slashdot Poll to my comments on X-Rays escaping a black hole.
It has been shown that X-Rays escape black holes, and by doing so "must" travel faster than light. There are other plausible explanations (wherein "must" is "could"), but this one serves my statement with some peer-reviewed merit.
I am not sure that I implied that nothing can travel faster than light (since I am quite certain some things, eg. X-Rays, can, at least practically if not theoretically :) ), and I would agree with your assessment.
Note that, in this case, by approaching the speed of light, your gravitational "depth" increases. Also note that such speed is relative, but really only the important relative component is to your initial speed to which the speed of light is measured, and the celesital objects to which you have affinity.
I believe that travelling to the past would merely let us perform certain travelling at speeds faster than light.
...
.. quirks of worthy pursuit.
...
Or, put another way, the time required at maximum velocity to return to your point of origin is at least the amount of time you travelled back in time. I believe you must sacrifice time or sacrifice position.
Position may or may not be in the way we expect; I suspect it is based upon your "depth" in the gravitational field, and as such, you would travel towards or away from heavy celestial bodies, such as the sun. Travelling towards them requires velocity. By the same token, you can temporally return to the beginning of the universe if you travel far enough away from the centre of it (assuming that the gravitational "depth" continues to decrease with distance, and the exponential energy increase required to travel as such is not unreasonable)
Binary stars and other equilibrium comes to mind, but I conjecture that "free" time travel in perfect equilibrium would be impossible; your relationship with time can only be altered in respect to changes in the gravitational depth. However, they may have
So goes a theory
# in vim, do
:set bg=dark
:set bg=light
# or
# depending on whether you have a light or dark background.
# copy that line to ~/.vimrc to retain that setting.
# hth
Ah, alas: the Athlon is happy at 65 oC, and will run right up to 75 oC, and not cook until 85 oC, whereas the Intel will cook off at 65 oC. This is not to say that the heat is irrelevent; I say it is not such a bad thing for the CPU microcosm itself, for the things around it I cannot say anything.
Well, if they had a touch of Mazda in them:
Building 323: The Chronos Lab
Or airplane versus railroads, a battle which really did exist.
It doesn't sound like cheating, does it? It carries the same stigma as PI=3 ...