I think that the cocept is sound, my biggest concert however would be protecting this tower through the atmosphere. I mean, it would of course be subject to all of the storms and weather patters of whereever it was located. I would also hate to see the result of a plane colliding with such a structure
I don't think it will actually be as tough as it is being made out to be. I can't think of the actaully post, but I have seen other announcements on/. of the RIAA and the MPAA going after users of Gnutella through their ISPs. Basicly they are just sending an email to the ISPs telling them that their users are doing illegal stuff. Then the ISPs tell the users to stop thier activity or get thrown off. Now the ISP's might not have any real evidence of any wrongdooing, other then what the RIAA/MPAA tells them, but it doesn't make a difference. An ISP can basicly kick you off for any reason they want. Whether this will stand up in the long run has yet to be determined. But for now, these scare tactics are certainly working on mnay ISP's
Um....You can't get billed for dialing an 800 # directly from the phone company. That only works with 900 numbers. The only way to get billed through an 800 number is if you give them a credit card or something else over the phone. Thats the whole purpose of 800 numbers, you know they are free.
In addition to all the talk about running cat5 here and fiber there, the first thing you want to do is determine a suitable cetral location to be your servercloset/power closet/everything closet. Really you want this to be right next to where the main power line comes in.
This should ideally be a small, well ventilated room. All of your cat5, fiber, s-video, etc. cables should go directly to this room. This way everything is centralized and can be easily controlled. This would also allow for easy instalation of say a phone system.
For those with the big bucks who want to truly make the "home of the future" one of the best things is to make all the electrical home runs. This means that every light switch and every outlet should be run directly to the central board, no daisy chaining. Although this will be more expensive during the construction (much more wire required) it provides greater flexabillity. Right now the only really high grade systems (outside of X10, which is not that high grade) for controlling the home require home run. They usually involve these switching boxes which can controll say 10 circuits, then you just add more boxes as you go along. Note that for this to work properly, you should also run low voltage wire to all the electrical switches you will be using as these systems usually rely on low voltage controll switches.
Another major advantage is to have conduit run all over the home and allow for pulling new cable easily. No matter how well you prepair and how much cable you run, there WILL be something new and better that you didn't think of. This way you can install new cables and new controlls as they come out.
I a attend a fairly well know school, and the first thing we do, is get taught OO in Java. The emphasis is basically on OO first, and Java second. We are taught that EVERYTHING is an object. Really basic programs are broken up into many classes. They actually get upset if any given method has more then a few lines of code (with a few exceptions), they want everything to be done in small blocks. We spend most of our class time learning theory and good programming concepts, then its basically up to the student to learn how to code these functions. Granted there is lots of support on the course websites and many TA's. Most projects for first year classes are provided with large support code. They show us what they want done and we have to fill in the pieces.
Year two starts with a basic computer engineering course. Teaching how computers work. This really works nicely to teach students how everything works, and gives a greater understanding to what they are doing. So when you get to C++, and someone says that '#' are for pre-compiler commands, you know what they are talking about. When someone says linker, you REALLY get it. Also in year two is introduction to C++.
Then in the next two years, you start taking all of the system, os, ai, etc. classes. Years 1&2 are the basics, 3 and 4 you start doing stuff.
I work for a school district in NY and we recently faced a similar problem to that being described. When we first got internet access for the district, the "Technology Committee" (both faculty, administration, and community members) decided that they wanted to use a censoring program in the middle schools, and elementary schools but to leave the high school open. It was felt that the high school students need this access and would use it responsibly, if not, we kick em off.
There is a new problem this year with E-Rate. E-Rate is national money used to subsidize technology in schools. Basically, as school can get almost 60% back of what they spend of technology (computers, broadband internet access, etc.) However, there was a new decision made that to be eligible for ANY E-Rate money, the district must use some censorship software. The bottom line, our district now uses this software on all schools.
The problem is not what the Parents want or even the school district. From a purely fiscal approach, we CAN'T afford to not get this E-Rate money. If you want to complain, this has to go to the national level, call you congressmen.
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I think that the cocept is sound, my biggest concert however would be protecting this tower through the atmosphere. I mean, it would of course be subject to all of the storms and weather patters of whereever it was located. I would also hate to see the result of a plane colliding with such a structure
I don't think it will actually be as tough as it is being made out to be. I can't think of the actaully post, but I have seen other announcements on /. of the RIAA and the MPAA going after users of Gnutella through their ISPs. Basicly they are just sending an email to the ISPs telling them that their users are doing illegal stuff. Then the ISPs tell the users to stop thier activity or get thrown off. Now the ISP's might not have any real evidence of any wrongdooing, other then what the RIAA/MPAA tells them, but it doesn't make a difference. An ISP can basicly kick you off for any reason they want. Whether this will stand up in the long run has yet to be determined. But for now, these scare tactics are certainly working on mnay ISP's
Um....You can't get billed for dialing an 800 # directly from the phone company. That only works with 900 numbers. The only way to get billed through an 800 number is if you give them a credit card or something else over the phone. Thats the whole purpose of 800 numbers, you know they are free.
In addition to all the talk about running cat5 here and fiber there, the first thing you want to do is determine a suitable cetral location to be your servercloset/power closet/everything closet. Really you want this to be right next to where the main power line comes in.
This should ideally be a small, well ventilated room. All of your cat5, fiber, s-video, etc. cables should go directly to this room. This way everything is centralized and can be easily controlled. This would also allow for easy instalation of say a phone system.
For those with the big bucks who want to truly make the "home of the future" one of the best things is to make all the electrical home runs. This means that every light switch and every outlet should be run directly to the central board, no daisy chaining. Although this will be more expensive during the construction (much more wire required) it provides greater flexabillity. Right now the only really high grade systems (outside of X10, which is not that high grade) for controlling the home require home run. They usually involve these switching boxes which can controll say 10 circuits, then you just add more boxes as you go along. Note that for this to work properly, you should also run low voltage wire to all the electrical switches you will be using as these systems usually rely on low voltage controll switches.
Another major advantage is to have conduit run all over the home and allow for pulling new cable easily. No matter how well you prepair and how much cable you run, there WILL be something new and better that you didn't think of. This way you can install new cables and new controlls as they come out.
I a attend a fairly well know school, and the first thing we do, is get taught OO in Java. The emphasis is basically on OO first, and Java second. We are taught that EVERYTHING is an object. Really basic programs are broken up into many classes. They actually get upset if any given method has more then a few lines of code (with a few exceptions), they want everything to be done in small blocks. We spend most of our class time learning theory and good programming concepts, then its basically up to the student to learn how to code these functions. Granted there is lots of support on the course websites and many TA's. Most projects for first year classes are provided with large support code. They show us what they want done and we have to fill in the pieces.
Year two starts with a basic computer engineering course. Teaching how computers work. This really works nicely to teach students how everything works, and gives a greater understanding to what they are doing. So when you get to C++, and someone says that '#' are for pre-compiler commands, you know what they are talking about. When someone says linker, you REALLY get it. Also in year two is introduction to C++.
Then in the next two years, you start taking all of the system, os, ai, etc. classes. Years 1&2 are the basics, 3 and 4 you start doing stuff.
I work for a school district in NY and we recently faced a similar problem to that being described. When we first got internet access for the district, the "Technology Committee" (both faculty, administration, and community members) decided that they wanted to use a censoring program in the middle schools, and elementary schools but to leave the high school open. It was felt that the high school students need this access and would use it responsibly, if not, we kick em off.
There is a new problem this year with E-Rate. E-Rate is national money used to subsidize technology in schools. Basically, as school can get almost 60% back of what they spend of technology (computers, broadband internet access, etc.) However, there was a new decision made that to be eligible for ANY E-Rate money, the district must use some censorship software. The bottom line, our district now uses this software on all schools.
The problem is not what the Parents want or even the school district. From a purely fiscal approach, we CAN'T afford to not get this E-Rate money. If you want to complain, this has to go to the national level, call you congressmen.