Add a new line to his business... have it turn into a fashion item... make 'e-whips' that geek's can't refuse. Integrate a 3D scanner into it that transmits the signal to a 'replicator'
Remember modem connections and 'feeds' for news and email? When most links were offline most of the time? Yep, networking before 'up all the time' connections were available to most of the world.
I had a Linux (and before that a Mark Williams 'Coherent' UNIX like) computer that ran UUCP, and did dial on-demand connections. I had it download email and subscribed usenet 'news feeds' nightly from a local university that had 'free' connections for members of the local UNIX computer users group.
It worked. It was solid once I got all the config's right.
Not long ago I saw some articles on the wide area network wireless internet in Africa uses these techniques even today to get connectivity 'out there' without having to have 'up all the time' servers in remote communities.
Usenet newsgroup and email server software are still there and available if anyone wants to use them. Actually, I should look into that for my local use too!
I would like to see the new BP protocol implemented and distributed with Linux. It could be great for implementing 'automotive node' networks (put a BP node in your car, and it could communicate whenever it found a un-secured WIFI connection as you drive down the road!
They do here in TN, but it depends on the station. Fairly often the windows computers are down or otherwise flanged. I email the various station broadcast engineers or station manager if I can't find the Engr's, and tell them it isn't updating, the times reported are wrong, not broadcasting, etc. Often the Windows XP machines running the software is hung because of 'automatic updates', BSOD, didn't restart after a reboot, or just hung. Some stations just choose NOT to broadcast it. Often on Sundays and sometimes other times, the programming is just wrong, or for some reason didn't download the programming. Normally the programming is downloaded a week or more ahead of time, but it does get 'flanged' sometimes and is not detected because this is not considered an important service by most stations.
Locally the service has gotten better especially after my 3rd or 4th email (I try not to do more than 1 every 24 hours). But that I am afraid I am thought of as an annoyance, so setting up automated monitoring or automatic system reboots weekly after a while ups their apparent reliability.
I doubt it, but their roles will change. If lecture can be handled by Khan Academy or the ilk, the teacher role will have more mentor/tutor aspect than lecturer. Khan Academy has tried being the 'lecturer you listen to at home' and the teachers are at school where you 'do the homework' using the teachers as the mentors and tutors for a more customized education.
My daughter teaches 5th grade in TN. She is a mentor / tutor / lecturer / disciplinarian / academic planner / counselor / 'parent buffer' and so many other obvious (to non-teacher like me) rolls. We can automate and allow kids to learn on their own only up to a given extent. Beyond that we need to know enough about each student to help customize their learning opportunities. Much of that can be 'automated' and 'remote', but in the end the fine tuning is one on one and customized to each student.
Teachers can teach, but it is up to the student to learn. For few of us will even an interactive computerized classroom inspire us to learn and stretch our learning.
I am replacing 'consumer' network equipment with 'commercial' level equipment. I'll know in 5+ years if it helps.
Why would DVD players or TVs go out? Most of us upgrade because we want 'new toys' before the old ones ware out. But infrastructure items we expect to last forever.
Where I live we have power spikes and sags and some short term outages (5 sec to 10 minute). I put APC Pro UPSes on all elecronics I want to keep (BackupsPro UPSes provide true sine wave, Backups UPSes provide 'modified' or 'stepped' sign wave. Cheaper UPSes all seem to be 'modified' or 'stepped' power, only more expensive ones do true sine wave.
Anyway the electronics on UPSes don't seem to fail as often. My old Linksys wireless router has worked for 7+ years now, but is showing signs of degrading. I just can't find anything with the same power.
Some of my replacement equipment is now the Ubiquiti series ( ubnt.com ) of routers, access points, etc. Their price isn't bad, and they have better remote configuration options (a big thing for me) than consumer level stuff (like Linksys, et al)
There is the old salt about pounding weapons of war into plowshares. How about making coins out of them instead?..
As a sovereign government they have the right to 'make money', but it doesn't say the outside world has to support their efforts. Or they could just use foreign moneys that they can buy from other governments. Greece would be glad for them to use theirs (if they would ship oil to Greece to cover the costs of the transaction plus a few extra million barrels per month, assuming Greece is off the Euro first...)
Yes, we don't have enough time in life to become expert in EVERYTHING. But school is not about becoming expert in ANYTHING, it is about learning with a liberal (in the academic sense meaning broad, not the political sense).
I would suggest math, chemistry, music, physics, history, economics, AND personal economics (how many kids know how to balance books whether checkbook or ATM cards, figure out what interest really means, and read a contract to tell someone is trying to screw them around?). English, public speaking, chess club, 2nd and 3rd languages, debate, science fair participants, and running track are all great too, but get kids to be mainly proficient at math, english (still the USAs most common language and legal language), reading (including reading literature), history and political science (sometimes known as 'citizenship').
If we all win, we develop a burning desire to learn throughout life, not just in school years.
Chemistry rocks but so does the entire world of learning!
Reporting attendance is a big deal if talking $30/day in state funding. It will tell if someone doesn't attend or is tardy in a class. Kids can't learn unless they are in class. Teachers can teach to empty chairs, but it doesn't do the kids much good if they aren't there. Still any amount of technology can't get the kids to engage. IMHO, teachers can teach, but the job of students are to learn. Good teacher help, technology is good, but learning can only be done by the student.
Anything that can get the kids to pay attention and buy into their part of the learning is the right thing.
From experience, the student 'wanting to learn' is much more important than technology or teachers ( but better teachers can make a difference compared to teachers that would rather be elsewhere).
But the state has problems with seeing their funding goes where it is used wisely, and Texas has chosen to withhold their funding if kids aren't there.
Historically there has been the golden rule and we haven't found a way around it. It works in business, personal life, government, and education: The one with the gold, makes the rule.
Because, so-far, this is a 'free society'. Once people have played by the rules, paid their taxes, they are still allowed to do anything they want that is not illegal with the rest. Save it, spend it wisely or foolishly, give it away, or burn it.
There is a reason why the Pre-BO takeover GM brought out new technology in Cadillac first. It let the 'rich' pay for the goods and bads, and shake out the worthwhile technology, that then slowly rolled down to the common person in the Chevy.
The best vengance is to get rich and do what you want without regard to others thoughts or shaking fingers. I look forward to seeing what you are held in contempt by do-gooders over once you are 'rich'.
If the 'official mainstream' don't want to do it, how can we get it done anyway?
Consumers will demand it, but it will be far after they see a need for it, and even further after not having it slows the economic engines.
Right now, I would settle for a moderate speed connection where I live. Comcast and AT&T serve places 3 miles away both north and south, but not here.... We need to do something to get the monopolies put 'in their place'. AT&T is worse now that before the decent decree.
To get that kind of a speed, a move to Chattanooga would be the cheapest way to go.
The fastest wired speed I can get now is 20Kbps on a dial-up modem. There is cable and DSL 3 miles away, but neither will be extended here.
The nearest WISP (clearwire) is about 50 miles away, and the hills get in the way (and we live in a valley between 2 hills). Broadcast TV is limited to NBC and FOX, sometimes CBS but only occasionally. Also have Christian stations and 2 other independent that seem to be all sales all the time.
We tried satellite Internet but got a real speed of about 150kbps, but the 2500ms propagation delay (measured with traceroute), and we had outages about half the time. Once the required contract ran out, it was canceled. (Vendor was Wildblue, they are now Excede. Hughes or others might be better but I can't get any info from apparent real users to date, so we haven't gone back there.)
So currently we use a Sprint3G air card and drops signal occasionally at about - current speed is 7.09Mbit download, 1.33Mbit upload.
AT&T has better service, but the cost goes prohibitive at about $10/G before long.
Basically, 25 miles outside Nashville TN, we may as well be in the proverbial BFE!
In the days up through the 1950 I guess, the electoral college made sense. Today it doesn't.
We need to abolish it for deciding presidents and VPs. This way it can be nearer one person, one vote. Our system will NEVER be perfect, but it is better than the alternatives.
The Electoral College was generated to get a consensus in each area of the country, and have the electors decide from the consensus they deemed reasonable. Now days we elect electors, but states are mostly winner take all, and the granularity of the votes that count are pretty large, meaning that the real decision is a 'guess', not a count of votes.
I agree. But if the Amazon sponsored legislation goes through the congress, MY reason for having a 'prime' account goes away, because it will jack up the cost of everything by 10% (basically).
And I refuse to support a company that is SO pro-taxation of their customers.
Yes they are building big warehouses all over my state, and employing a few thousand warehouse workers, but that is the problem they will deal with when their customers, who have told them 'no', backup their statements, by following through.
Plus, prices at Amazon even with Prime are not always competitive or even near. And adding sales tax on top of Amazon purchases will just make them that much more un-competitive.
I am always for good long term research to be funded by the govt, but it needs to be long term research (estimated ROI to be AT LEAST 25 to 50 years or more). Most of the Govt labs are oriented to longer term research, and normally not doing development (the next stage after research in the monitization of the knowledge gained from research).
Large companies can afford 10-25 year ROI in research. Bell Labs, IBM, and other 'big' companies can afford it and do it because it makes economic sense for them.
Small to middle size companies can not afford the deep pockets or long time frame investments that kind of research takes. But they do short term, current to 2 to 5 year ROI tends to be their life cycle for significant investment.
I do NOT like govt trying to get in on the short term, low hanging fruit, type of 'investment' meant to drive industries given directions.
If the govt wants to get a good ROI on the tax money, give deductions for money that leads to demonstrated technology, or give buckets of money like X-prize things or the $$ that DARPA has used to get research done on autonomous navigating vehicles. That money got a great return on investment on the research involved.
NASA is going about getting space transports using typical DOD ways. Offer a contract for development to various contractors. Choose 2, offer the next stage of 'demonstration projects', before offering 'prime contractor' status. IMHO, I would like to see prime and secondary contractors, supporting both to some extent, and hope they develop a healthy (i.e. no throat cutting) competition to build a healthy long term.
Vote out politicians that allow it at all levels. Tell them what you are going to do and make it public. Then do it. But it has to be important to enough voters in their constituency to make it so.
Will the public do it?... I am cynical enough to believe not, but I hold out hope none the less.
As our environmentalists tell us there is more available water in the world now than in the last several hundred years. We are supposedly melting it, and the sea coasts are being absorbed in higher coast lines.
The problem is we don't have enough fresh (non-salty or contaminated) water where we want it.
Drilling is great, but with aquifers that are not refreshed sufficiently rapidly (this is happening in developed and under-developed countries too), live starts sucking if we can't find enough water for their needs, let alone desires.
We can use equipment to pull water out of the air, but that takes lots of capital and investments that we want to make. We can handle it like oil. Pipe or truck it where we want it, but that takes more capital investments and fresh water doesn't go for $80/barrel for a long term, the economics aren't worth it.
People have from the beginning of time moved to where they CAN find fresh water abundantly. And we have figured out how to do with less. We just can't do with none.
It is just an economic exercise, those with the money will win, those without will loose. Life isn't fare. Life goes on.
Most of the math in the world is arithmetic, a little algebra and geometry helps a lot.
Higher than that, is seldom needed in normal things in life, but I have found calculus and understanding 3D geometry very useful in programming for companies that don't even know they have problems that are more easily solved using techniques from those spaces.
IMHO, education is never lost. More education even if I 'never use it' is still better. Sometimes it just helps clarify what others view as noise or 'magic' in the world.
In high school I almost gave up on math in Algebra I. After taking a graduate level statistics class as an under grad at a good college, math finally got through that I had had enough, both mentally and practically. But it still adds to my quality of life as a retiree, I still work on projects out of my comfort zone, just to keep expanding my interests.
IMHO, to determine what you are after, analyze each country and location the same way you would analyze any other system for a customer. Do a cost / benefit lifecycle analysis for each timeframe and assign a probability to each outcome for the reliability of the data. Multiply the probability times the probable outcome weight and compare it to the sum or average of the probability adjusted weights. Now maximize/minimize for desired probabilities, and take pick your winners in each category. Now adjust the answers due to the weight you give to each category, and choose the max/min of each. Sum the answers and get your 'winner' overall.
Take that answer, and adjust it by your gut feel 'reasonable answer' fear factor quotient to see if you believe the imperical results to see if you want that answer or not.
Now if you were a client, you would make a recommendation to a customer (where to build a new datacenter, or distribution center, etc). But for personal use it still comes down to personal bias.... Since my wife won't read this, I will admit I did a cost/benefits analysis of getting married vs not, and a 'requirements' list for desired traits in a spouse. She meets or exceeds requirements in all areas I had noted as important, of which I am very pleased. And 30+ years later, it seems like it stuck, but I still try to NOT take her for granted.
We do the same thing when we make any life decision. Normally the analytical solution wins, but sometimes the 'gut feel' wins. The 'gut feel' wins when there is 'just that something that doesn't seem right' about the analysis.... Doing a post mortum analysis of our analytical analysis to see 'why' normally finds there are areas we didn't consider or our analysis in that area was made on bad assumptions for whatever reason.... All that being said, what is your 'best guess'? Where are you getting your data from? Is that source normally accurate? Do you believe their perspective?
As a US citizen, I am bias in favor of the USA doing the right thing in the long run. But long run might be longer than I live. The USA does make stupid decisions mainly because the US voting public is gullible and overly optimistic when given dreams of a brighter future rather than information and facts about the way to a more prosperous for all future, IMHO.
For my money, If you see a country like Greece starting to believe in doing the right thing, and going down the belt tightening route, it might be the best long term bet, and if you can move in with some capital, it is the time to 'buy low' and 'sell dear' in 20+ years. But the time in-between can and probably will be hard. If they don't, just don't go there, the risk is to high both in safety and economically.
Canada and Austrailia are good, but IMHO their level of socialism is unsustainable in the long run, like the UK. But it will work for a while longer because they have the peoples mandate, and their governments can live on debt for a long time.
Depending on your religious tolerance, some Islamic countries are quite good for 20+ years, and some are not. Religion and religious tolerance by you and the country might be a reason to choose or disqualify a country. Even in the USA, some states are more liberal than others and some of them are more 'tolerant of different views' than others, even though our laws supposedly don't allow it. (i.e. Utah is still basically Mormon (the Church of Latter Day Saints) as a de-facto religous requirement to succeed. Some southern states are considered 'bible belt' and are pro-conservative Christian interpretation. Some states are effectively 'atheistic' if you look at polls taken by various groups (many states in the NE and West coasts, and north), Folks in the midwest 'flyover states' tend to be more 'independant' both economically and religously, but tend to be 'more religous' than the coasts.
Reviewing the CIA Worldbook web site might help in overall country selection based on lots o
I am retired now, but as a computer scientist (by degree), programmer and analyst and sysadmin (by functional activity), math higher than algebra does come in useful.
Even if I didn't directly use statistics or calculus but once every few years they provided a great understanding of what I saw in information I had to analyze to solve workplace problems.
Yes, there were the programmers around me that thought it was all 'hocus pocus', but they were also the ones that brought their problems to me to 'do my magic' whenever the analysis was above their level of understanding.
Even digital systems design allowed me to develop of optimization algorithm's for tax problems for a couple of fortune 500 companies during my career. It took a couple of months to come up with a couple of lines of code (and 20+ pages of explanation so others could maintaining it after I was gone).
Even after marrying a geologist/geophysicist who now teaches horseback riding to beginners, we have found education adds to the tapestry of life. Whether it is math, history, theology, music theory, rocks, or anything else. All education is good.... Much of it will not generate a $$ of income. Some will pay off better than any slot machine you have ever seen.
I have found teaching my kids that posing problems that they are interested in solving and let them get frustrated helps. Then introduce 'tools' (whether it be math tools, or a screwdriver) that help them solve the problems. A few times of this, then they start learning that learning about the 'tools' it takes to address lifes problems isn't so 'dry' after all.... Thankfully we found a college that uses that concept for my son. He now is a MechEngr, is in a couple of 'startups' but has a 'job', and is a partner in a coffee concern in the Boston area.... I attribute part of it to luck, part of it to training, and most of it to learning to love learning about so many areas.
Once again, learning is never lost. Education can't be taken away even if you are 'fired'. All education adds to the quality of life.... Oops... sorry about preaching. But this is obviously important to me. I hope it helps someone else make good decisions for themselves.
In a more 'normal' home consumption (by my old utility bills) runs 1400 to 2000 kwh/mo.
Assume 2000kwh. That means 1GW power plant, if producing that for 8hrs/day optimistically, and we can store for night use perfectly, generates a usable 8GW/day.
If a home consumes 2000kwh/mo and a month is 30 days, and a day is 24 hours, a home is a bout 2.78kw/day.
A GW is 1000kw, so a 1GW power plant should power about 360 homes.
But then again, I could be off, but am I off by 200,000 percent?
Home generation of electricity costs 3 to $6/w, and commercial solar power costs about $10 to $60/watt. That is without any extra government subsidies, benefits, credits, bureaucratic hoopla. Those costs have come WAY down (about half) in the last several years.
I am NOT against solar or other 'green' power. But I want it to pay for itself without giving away MY TAX money or yours. If folks want to 'go green', I am all for it. Let them do it, and bear the cost. Currently the ones that go all solar are 'solar dilettantes', or folks that can afford to do it without 'subsidies'. For those, I give them credit for being on the forefront, and I applaud them.
WMT is doing it because it makes $ and cents to them. They DO factor in the tax subsidies, rebates, and any other moneys they can get for 'free' to them. They also purchase in large enough quantities to get discounts we can't imagine. And I don't hold that against them. They are in the business of making money, and this makes $$ for them. I have been a WMT shareholder (and might still be via some mutual funds), and to spend MY money on such projects is OK, because they have a long term ROI investment perspective. I don't know, but I guess without the subsidies and rebates it might not be a financially viable project for them. And the same for anyone else that takes the 'free money', while it lasts. But it can't last forever.
I just want to see these systems be cost effective WITHOUT having to factor in rebates and subsidies. Then it makes REAL sense for us all to 'go green'.
I would prefer to see the iPhone vs Samsung vs whoever else wants in the frey -- to be determined in the marketplace.
This trial tells me that Apple is running scared. They don't have their Messiah anymore, and they want to use FUD to tie up anything they think they did or should have thought of before someone else makes a nickel off of it.
Slashdot Mirror
Add a new line to his business... have it turn into a fashion item... make 'e-whips' that geek's can't refuse. Integrate a 3D scanner into it that transmits the signal to a 'replicator'
Remember modem connections and 'feeds' for news and email? When most links were offline most of the time? Yep, networking before 'up all the time' connections were available to most of the world.
I had a Linux (and before that a Mark Williams 'Coherent' UNIX like) computer that ran UUCP, and did dial on-demand connections. I had it download email and subscribed usenet 'news feeds' nightly from a local university that had 'free' connections for members of the local UNIX computer users group.
It worked. It was solid once I got all the config's right.
Not long ago I saw some articles on the wide area network wireless internet in Africa uses these techniques even today to get connectivity 'out there' without having to have 'up all the time' servers in remote communities.
Usenet newsgroup and email server software are still there and available if anyone wants to use them. Actually, I should look into that for my local use too!
I would like to see the new BP protocol implemented and distributed with Linux. It could be great for implementing 'automotive node' networks (put a BP node in your car, and it could communicate whenever it found a un-secured WIFI connection as you drive down the road!
Dreaming... Life goes on.
They do here in TN, but it depends on the station. Fairly often the windows computers are down or otherwise flanged. I email the various station broadcast engineers or station manager if I can't find the Engr's, and tell them it isn't updating, the times reported are wrong, not broadcasting, etc. Often the Windows XP machines running the software is hung because of 'automatic updates', BSOD, didn't restart after a reboot, or just hung. Some stations just choose NOT to broadcast it. Often on Sundays and sometimes other times, the programming is just wrong, or for some reason didn't download the programming. Normally the programming is downloaded a week or more ahead of time, but it does get 'flanged' sometimes and is not detected because this is not considered an important service by most stations.
Locally the service has gotten better especially after my 3rd or 4th email (I try not to do more than 1 every 24 hours). But that I am afraid I am thought of as an annoyance, so setting up automated monitoring or automatic system reboots weekly after a while ups their apparent reliability.
At least that is my perception and my story.
I doubt it, but their roles will change. If lecture can be handled by Khan Academy or the ilk, the teacher role will have more mentor/tutor aspect than lecturer. Khan Academy has tried being the 'lecturer you listen to at home' and the teachers are at school where you 'do the homework' using the teachers as the mentors and tutors for a more customized education.
My daughter teaches 5th grade in TN. She is a mentor / tutor / lecturer / disciplinarian / academic planner / counselor / 'parent buffer' and so many other obvious (to non-teacher like me) rolls. We can automate and allow kids to learn on their own only up to a given extent. Beyond that we need to know enough about each student to help customize their learning opportunities. Much of that can be 'automated' and 'remote', but in the end the fine tuning is one on one and customized to each student.
Teachers can teach, but it is up to the student to learn. For few of us will even an interactive computerized classroom inspire us to learn and stretch our learning.
But that is just my opinion.
I am replacing 'consumer' network equipment with 'commercial' level equipment. I'll know in 5+ years if it helps.
Why would DVD players or TVs go out? Most of us upgrade because we want 'new toys' before the old ones ware out. But infrastructure items we expect to last forever.
Where I live we have power spikes and sags and some short term outages (5 sec to 10 minute). I put APC Pro UPSes on all elecronics I want to keep (BackupsPro UPSes provide true sine wave, Backups UPSes provide 'modified' or 'stepped' sign wave. Cheaper UPSes all seem to be 'modified' or 'stepped' power, only more expensive ones do true sine wave.
Anyway the electronics on UPSes don't seem to fail as often. My old Linksys wireless router has worked for 7+ years now, but is showing signs of degrading. I just can't find anything with the same power.
Some of my replacement equipment is now the Ubiquiti series ( ubnt.com ) of routers, access points, etc. Their price isn't bad, and they have better remote configuration options (a big thing for me) than consumer level stuff (like Linksys, et al)
There is the old salt about pounding weapons of war into plowshares. How about making coins out of them instead? ..
As a sovereign government they have the right to 'make money', but it doesn't say the outside world has to support their efforts. Or they could just use foreign moneys that they can buy from other governments. Greece would be glad for them to use theirs (if they would ship oil to Greece to cover the costs of the transaction plus a few extra million barrels per month, assuming Greece is off the Euro first...)
Make that liberal education ... I have to become a better proof reader! especially of my own work.
Yes, we don't have enough time in life to become expert in EVERYTHING. But school is not about becoming expert in ANYTHING, it is about learning with a liberal (in the academic sense meaning broad, not the political sense).
I would suggest math, chemistry, music, physics, history, economics, AND personal economics (how many kids know how to balance books whether checkbook or ATM cards, figure out what interest really means, and read a contract to tell someone is trying to screw them around?). English, public speaking, chess club, 2nd and 3rd languages, debate, science fair participants, and running track are all great too, but get kids to be mainly proficient at math, english (still the USAs most common language and legal language), reading (including reading literature), history and political science (sometimes known as 'citizenship').
If we all win, we develop a burning desire to learn throughout life, not just in school years.
Chemistry rocks but so does the entire world of learning!
Reporting attendance is a big deal if talking $30/day in state funding. It will tell if someone doesn't attend or is tardy in a class. Kids can't learn unless they are in class. Teachers can teach to empty chairs, but it doesn't do the kids much good if they aren't there. Still any amount of technology can't get the kids to engage. IMHO, teachers can teach, but the job of students are to learn. Good teacher help, technology is good, but learning can only be done by the student.
Anything that can get the kids to pay attention and buy into their part of the learning is the right thing.
From experience, the student 'wanting to learn' is much more important than technology or teachers ( but better teachers can make a difference compared to teachers that would rather be elsewhere).
But the state has problems with seeing their funding goes where it is used wisely, and Texas has chosen to withhold their funding if kids aren't there.
Historically there has been the golden rule and we haven't found a way around it.
It works in business, personal life, government, and education: The one with the gold, makes the rule.
Because, so-far, this is a 'free society'. Once people have played by the rules, paid their taxes, they are still allowed to do anything they want that is not illegal with the rest. Save it, spend it wisely or foolishly, give it away, or burn it.
There is a reason why the Pre-BO takeover GM brought out new technology in Cadillac first. It let the 'rich' pay for the goods and bads, and shake out the worthwhile technology, that then slowly rolled down to the common person in the Chevy.
The best vengance is to get rich and do what you want without regard to others thoughts or shaking fingers. I look forward to seeing what you are held in contempt by do-gooders over once you are 'rich'.
If the 'official mainstream' don't want to do it, how can we get it done anyway?
Consumers will demand it, but it will be far after they see a need for it, and even further after not having it slows the economic engines.
Right now, I would settle for a moderate speed connection where I live. Comcast and AT&T serve places 3 miles away both north and south, but not here. ... We need to do something to get the monopolies put 'in their place'. AT&T is worse now that before the decent decree.
OR let me put MY affiliate ID in replacing Connonical! coatclos-20 is my preffered affiliate ID!
To get that kind of a speed, a move to Chattanooga would be the cheapest way to go.
The fastest wired speed I can get now is 20Kbps on a dial-up modem. There is cable and DSL 3 miles away, but neither will be extended here.
The nearest WISP (clearwire) is about 50 miles away, and the hills get in the way (and we live in a valley between 2 hills). Broadcast TV is limited to NBC and FOX, sometimes CBS but only occasionally. Also have Christian stations and 2 other independent that seem to be all sales all the time.
We tried satellite Internet but got a real speed of about 150kbps, but the 2500ms propagation delay (measured with traceroute), and we had outages about half the time. Once the required contract ran out, it was canceled. (Vendor was Wildblue, they are now Excede. Hughes or others might be better but I can't get any info from apparent real users to date, so we haven't gone back there.)
So currently we use a Sprint3G air card and drops signal occasionally at about - current speed is 7.09Mbit download, 1.33Mbit upload.
AT&T has better service, but the cost goes prohibitive at about $10/G before long.
Basically, 25 miles outside Nashville TN, we may as well be in the proverbial BFE!
if it is for tracking ballots, and is anyway tied even 'indirectly' back to the voter then it is not a secret ballot, IMHO.
But I agree with the judge, that there is no 'right to a secret ballot', it has just been implemented and assumed for many years.
If it is that important, let's start changing the law. If it is not, then it is time for beer.
Yes, and they sign NDA's to get it. That even happened when AT&T's Bell Labs licensed UNIX to colleges back in the dark ages.
In the days up through the 1950 I guess, the electoral college made sense. Today it doesn't.
We need to abolish it for deciding presidents and VPs. This way it can be nearer one person, one vote. Our system will NEVER be perfect, but it is better than the alternatives.
The Electoral College was generated to get a consensus in each area of the country, and have the electors decide from the consensus they deemed reasonable. Now days we elect electors, but states are mostly winner take all, and the granularity of the votes that count are pretty large, meaning that the real decision is a 'guess', not a count of votes.
Who's up for another constitutional amendment?
I agree. But if the Amazon sponsored legislation goes through the congress, MY reason for having a 'prime' account goes away, because it will jack up the cost of everything by 10% (basically).
And I refuse to support a company that is SO pro-taxation of their customers.
Yes they are building big warehouses all over my state, and employing a few thousand warehouse workers, but that is the problem they will deal with when their customers, who have told them 'no', backup their statements, by following through.
Plus, prices at Amazon even with Prime are not always competitive or even near. And adding sales tax on top of Amazon purchases will just make them that much more un-competitive.
I am always for good long term research to be funded by the govt, but it needs to be long term research (estimated ROI to be AT LEAST 25 to 50 years or more). Most of the Govt labs are oriented to longer term research, and normally not doing development (the next stage after research in the monitization of the knowledge gained from research).
Large companies can afford 10-25 year ROI in research. Bell Labs, IBM, and other 'big' companies can afford it and do it because it makes economic sense for them.
Small to middle size companies can not afford the deep pockets or long time frame investments that kind of research takes. But they do short term, current to 2 to 5 year ROI tends to be their life cycle for significant investment.
I do NOT like govt trying to get in on the short term, low hanging fruit, type of 'investment' meant to drive industries given directions.
If the govt wants to get a good ROI on the tax money, give deductions for money that leads to demonstrated technology, or give buckets of money like X-prize things or the $$ that DARPA has used to get research done on autonomous navigating vehicles. That money got a great return on investment on the research involved.
NASA is going about getting space transports using typical DOD ways. Offer a contract for development to various contractors. Choose 2, offer the next stage of 'demonstration projects', before offering 'prime contractor' status. IMHO, I would like to see prime and secondary contractors, supporting both to some extent, and hope they develop a healthy (i.e. no throat cutting) competition to build a healthy long term.
But that is just my perspective.
The public can control it.
Vote out politicians that allow it at all levels. Tell them what you are going to do and make it public. Then do it. But it has to be important to enough voters in their constituency to make it so.
Will the public do it? ... I am cynical enough to believe not, but I hold out hope none the less.
As our environmentalists tell us there is more available water in the world now than in the last several hundred years. We are supposedly melting it, and the sea coasts are being absorbed in higher coast lines.
The problem is we don't have enough fresh (non-salty or contaminated) water where we want it.
Drilling is great, but with aquifers that are not refreshed sufficiently rapidly (this is happening in developed and under-developed countries too), live starts sucking if we can't find enough water for their needs, let alone desires.
We can use equipment to pull water out of the air, but that takes lots of capital and investments that we want to make.
We can handle it like oil. Pipe or truck it where we want it, but that takes more capital investments and fresh water doesn't go for $80/barrel for a long term, the economics aren't worth it.
People have from the beginning of time moved to where they CAN find fresh water abundantly. And we have figured out how to do with less. We just can't do with none.
It is just an economic exercise, those with the money will win, those without will loose. Life isn't fare. Life goes on.
Most of the math in the world is arithmetic, a little algebra and geometry helps a lot.
Higher than that, is seldom needed in normal things in life, but I have found calculus and understanding 3D geometry very useful in programming for companies that don't even know they have problems that are more easily solved using techniques from those spaces.
IMHO, education is never lost. More education even if I 'never use it' is still better. Sometimes it just helps clarify what others view as noise or 'magic' in the world.
In high school I almost gave up on math in Algebra I. After taking a graduate level statistics class as an under grad at a good college, math finally got through that I had had enough, both mentally and practically. But it still adds to my quality of life as a retiree, I still work on projects out of my comfort zone, just to keep expanding my interests.
IMHO, to determine what you are after, analyze each country and location the same way you would analyze any other system for a customer. Do a cost / benefit lifecycle analysis for each timeframe and assign a probability to each outcome for the reliability of the data. Multiply the probability times the probable outcome weight and compare it to the sum or average of the probability adjusted weights. Now maximize/minimize for desired probabilities, and take pick your winners in each category. Now adjust the answers due to the weight you give to each category, and choose the max/min of each. Sum the answers and get your 'winner' overall.
Take that answer, and adjust it by your gut feel 'reasonable answer' fear factor quotient to see if you believe the imperical results to see if you want that answer or not.
Now if you were a client, you would make a recommendation to a customer (where to build a new datacenter, or distribution center, etc). But for personal use it still comes down to personal bias. ... Since my wife won't read this, I will admit I did a cost/benefits analysis of getting married vs not, and a 'requirements' list for desired traits in a spouse. She meets or exceeds requirements in all areas I had noted as important, of which I am very pleased. And 30+ years later, it seems like it stuck, but I still try to NOT take her for granted.
We do the same thing when we make any life decision. Normally the analytical solution wins, but sometimes the 'gut feel' wins. The 'gut feel' wins when there is 'just that something that doesn't seem right' about the analysis. ... Doing a post mortum analysis of our analytical analysis to see 'why' normally finds there are areas we didn't consider or our analysis in that area was made on bad assumptions for whatever reason. ... All that being said, what is your 'best guess'? Where are you getting your data from? Is that source normally accurate? Do you believe their perspective?
As a US citizen, I am bias in favor of the USA doing the right thing in the long run. But long run might be longer than I live. The USA does make stupid decisions mainly because the US voting public is gullible and overly optimistic when given dreams of a brighter future rather than information and facts about the way to a more prosperous for all future, IMHO.
For my money, If you see a country like Greece starting to believe in doing the right thing, and going down the belt tightening route, it might be the best long term bet, and if you can move in with some capital, it is the time to 'buy low' and 'sell dear' in 20+ years. But the time in-between can and probably will be hard. If they don't, just don't go there, the risk is to high both in safety and economically.
Canada and Austrailia are good, but IMHO their level of socialism is unsustainable in the long run, like the UK. But it will work for a while longer because they have the peoples mandate, and their governments can live on debt for a long time.
Depending on your religious tolerance, some Islamic countries are quite good for 20+ years, and some are not. Religion and religious tolerance by you and the country might be a reason to choose or disqualify a country. Even in the USA, some states are more liberal than others and some of them are more 'tolerant of different views' than others, even though our laws supposedly don't allow it. (i.e. Utah is still basically Mormon (the Church of Latter Day Saints) as a de-facto religous requirement to succeed. Some southern states are considered 'bible belt' and are pro-conservative Christian interpretation. Some states are effectively 'atheistic' if you look at polls taken by various groups (many states in the NE and West coasts, and north), Folks in the midwest 'flyover states' tend to be more 'independant' both economically and religously, but tend to be 'more religous' than the coasts.
Reviewing the CIA Worldbook web site might help in overall country selection based on lots o
I am retired now, but as a computer scientist (by degree), programmer and analyst and sysadmin (by functional activity), math higher than algebra does come in useful.
Even if I didn't directly use statistics or calculus but once every few years they provided a great understanding of what I saw in information I had to analyze to solve workplace problems.
Yes, there were the programmers around me that thought it was all 'hocus pocus', but they were also the ones that brought their problems to me to 'do my magic' whenever the analysis was above their level of understanding.
Even digital systems design allowed me to develop of optimization algorithm's for tax problems for a couple of fortune 500 companies during my career. It took a couple of months to come up with a couple of lines of code (and 20+ pages of explanation so others could maintaining it after I was gone).
Even after marrying a geologist/geophysicist who now teaches horseback riding to beginners, we have found education adds to the tapestry of life. Whether it is math, history, theology, music theory, rocks, or anything else. All education is good. ... Much of it will not generate a $$ of income. Some will pay off better than any slot machine you have ever seen.
I have found teaching my kids that posing problems that they are interested in solving and let them get frustrated helps. Then introduce 'tools' (whether it be math tools, or a screwdriver) that help them solve the problems. A few times of this, then they start learning that learning about the 'tools' it takes to address lifes problems isn't so 'dry' after all. ... Thankfully we found a college that uses that concept for my son. He now is a MechEngr, is in a couple of 'startups' but has a 'job', and is a partner in a coffee concern in the Boston area. ... I attribute part of it to luck, part of it to training, and most of it to learning to love learning about so many areas.
Once again, learning is never lost. Education can't be taken away even if you are 'fired'. All education adds to the quality of life. ... Oops ... sorry about preaching. But this is obviously important to me. I hope it helps someone else make good decisions for themselves.
In a more 'normal' home consumption (by my old utility bills) runs 1400 to 2000 kwh/mo.
Assume 2000kwh. That means 1GW power plant, if producing that for 8hrs/day optimistically, and we can store for night use perfectly, generates a usable 8GW/day.
If a home consumes 2000kwh/mo and a month is 30 days, and a day is 24 hours, a home is a bout 2.78kw/day.
A GW is 1000kw, so a 1GW power plant should power about 360 homes.
But then again, I could be off, but am I off by 200,000 percent?
Home generation of electricity costs 3 to $6/w, and commercial solar power costs about $10 to $60/watt. That is without any extra government subsidies, benefits, credits, bureaucratic hoopla. Those costs have come WAY down (about half) in the last several years.
I am NOT against solar or other 'green' power. But I want it to pay for itself without giving away MY TAX money or yours. If folks want to 'go green', I am all for it. Let them do it, and bear the cost. Currently the ones that go all solar are 'solar dilettantes', or folks that can afford to do it without 'subsidies'. For those, I give them credit for being on the forefront, and I applaud them.
WMT is doing it because it makes $ and cents to them. They DO factor in the tax subsidies, rebates, and any other moneys they can get for 'free' to them. They also purchase in large enough quantities to get discounts we can't imagine. And I don't hold that against them. They are in the business of making money, and this makes $$ for them. I have been a WMT shareholder (and might still be via some mutual funds), and to spend MY money on such projects is OK, because they have a long term ROI investment perspective. I don't know, but I guess without the subsidies and rebates it might not be a financially viable project for them. And the same for anyone else that takes the 'free money', while it lasts. But it can't last forever.
I just want to see these systems be cost effective WITHOUT having to factor in rebates and subsidies. Then it makes REAL sense for us all to 'go green'.
I would prefer to see the iPhone vs Samsung vs whoever else wants in the frey -- to be determined in the marketplace.
This trial tells me that Apple is running scared. They don't have their Messiah anymore, and they want to use FUD to tie up anything they think they did or should have thought of before someone else makes a nickel off of it.