If there are improprieties in this process, then they can and should be dealt with at an appropriate time. But there's a saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face... In other words, it's stupid to punish someone by refusing something that benefits you.
Vaccinating health workers not only benefits the workers themselves, but the patients as well by reducing the potential vectors of infection. There's a lot of misinformation spreading about these vaccinations, and it's unfortunate that they have even invaded the scientific and armchair scientific communities. The delivery mechanisms for these vaccines have been well-tested over decades, and the risks of complications from the flu clearly outweigh the risks of vaccination, even (especially) for healthy individuals.
You could argue that people should have the right to decide what they allow in their bodies, and I would agree. Nobody is being forced to take anything -- people are free to leave their jobs if they disagree with the terms of employment, just as if they had ethical reservations about any other aspect of their job.
More importantly, in my opinion, people also have a right to straightforward and factual information about the risks involved; an area where the media has been less than forthcoming. Regardless of the reason(s) for this, about which I could only speculate, the facts surrounding vaccination are easily verifiable and well supported by scientific research from independent organizations, and the media should not be lending authority to misguided, if well-intentioned, individuals providing anecdotes to the contrary.
People are remarkably bad at judging and managing risk, as explained rather well (if a bit melodramatically) in many of Nassim Taleb's books. Yes, there is a very small risk of a given individual dying from the flu, and at best, a vaccine decreases those odds further for that individual. It's possible that some people who are vaccinated may die from the vaccination itself, even if they never contracted or never would have contracted the flu. BUT, a) it's impossible to have a-priori knowledge of who will and will not be infected, and b) a vaccinated population decreases the risk for *everybody*, including those most at risk of complications, because a vaccinated population, as a whole, is a poor host for the disease. People's poor perception of risk is one of the reasons we have mandatory auto insurance; because many people assume that they will never cause an accident, and many of them are right, but some still go on to cause accidents.
Spreading and managing risk is one of the benefits of living in a society versus living off in the wilderness somewhere where all of the risk is directly borne by the individual and there is no backup plan if you make poor choices. If anything, the fact that this vaccine is *not* mandatory should be the only conflict of conscience for any rational thinker, except that when possible, from a historical and ethical perspective, it seems to be more productive to convince people of the best course of action than to force them into it. That said, I would sincerely hope, given more dire consequences such as a potent and easily transmissible outbreak of Ebola (and indeed the existence of a vaccination), that the government would mandate vaccinations for everyone. The fact that the H1N1 vaccination is simply a condition for exposing oneself to sick people should be entirely without controversy.
Sounds like somebody's been watching too many X-Files reruns...
There will be a vague gray fuzzy knock on your door shortly. Do not remove any of the crawlies from under your skin -- there's no time for that now. Pack only what you need, wrap your cash in tinfoil to attenuate the signal from the embedded tracking devices, and just RUN!!! When you arrive at the previously agreed-upon meeting place, then we can use my ultrasonic humidifier to examine you and find out how many organs they've already stolen. Obviously the brain is a leading candidate...
Yes and no. The frequencies you state are correct, but there are much larger differences between the standards, and that's not why they chose to use the mains frequency. It was because using the mains frequency allowed for fewer components in manufacturing, which allowed for cheaper sets. It's much easier to sync the vertical ramp with the signal you already have conveniently being provided by the mains, than to include an oscillator + frequency divider*, especially with the technology back then.
But there's more:
A) Incandescent lights don't flicker appreciably at those frequencies; they output a nearly constant level of light proportional to the RMS power. That's because filaments work by emitting light through heating, and the temperature doesn't change appreciably in 1/60th (or 1/50th) of a second. It's also why incandescent lights "fade out" when you turn them off, much like an electric heating element on a stove, although usually over a much shorter time frame.
B) Syncing a display's refresh rate with the ambient lighting *increases* the apparent flicker. If you're still using a CRT, and you have fluorescent or compact fluorescent lighting, try setting the CRT refresh rate to your mains frequency, and you'll see horrible flickering. Next select the next highest frequency (even 1Hz off, but not a multiple of the mains frequency), and you'll notice that the flickering has virtually disappeared. (This effect is more pronounced on "modern" multisync CRTs, because the persistence of the phosphors used is shorter than in fixed 50/60Hz televisions).
C) The other major factors that affect the flicker of the display, aside from refresh rate, is the phosphorous coating of the CRT, and the power of the electron beam (which is/was a function of the brightness control). As alluded to above, the coating was specifically selected to provide optimum persistence, and the brightness control was provided to compensate for phosphor burn-out, since a tiny bit of phosphor is evaporated over time, which necessitated an increase in voltage to obtain the same level of brightness.
* Low frequency oscillators are notoriously unstable and difficult to calibrate, so you'd have to use a higher frequency oscillator and divide it in half until you get 50Hz. This was all before solid state components, and that's a lot of vacuum tubes!
French is on its way down, not up. Once the diplomatic language of Europe, it has long since been supplanted by English. In almost every non-French speaking country, you're far more likely to find English speakers than French, be it European, Mid-East, Asian, African, or South American. In sheer numbers, Mandarin Chinese is the most popular language, but that won't do you much good outside of China. Spanish and English are essentially tied for second, with variations according to who's counting, and the methodology used. Spanish will come in handy in much of South America, though not so much in Brazil, French Guiana, or Suriname. Outside of South America, it has limited utility, although it shares much in common with other Romantic languages like French and Italian.
In my opinion, the benefit of a native English speaker learning a second language is not necessarily in its practical value, but in gaining a deeper understanding of how language influences thought and communication. Many languages have verbs, adjectives, and of course idioms, that simply don't exist in other languages. From that perspective, it's not so important *which* language you learn, as it is *that* you learn another language at all.
The thing about a steering wheel vs. joystick is that the former translates a large change in angle to a much smaller change in wheel angle, while a joystick does the exact opposite. You could certainly engineer a joystick with similar characteristics, but it would take up a lot of room -- hence the invention of the steering wheel.
The minor corrections that we continuously, yet nearly unconsciously, make while driving would become burdensome when applied to a joystick. In a simulation like a video game, there are no road imperfections, steering dead zones, alignment, or tire balancing issues, and therefore mastering the joystick is quite possible (but by no means simple). Many games also employ variable stick-to-wheel angle ratios, so that a given stick angle at a low speed results in a larger change in wheel angle than at higher speed. These would likely be necessary for real vehicles, but they make it difficult to predict directional changes at a constant speed, and increasingly difficult with speed AND direction changes, since stick deflection must be increased or decreased as velocity changes.
Even absent such "assistant" technologies, without independent controls steering while changing velocity becomes more challenging, not less. Say you're braking around a turn, which is followed by a short length of straight road and a stop sign/light. With independent controls, you maintain more or less static pressure on the brake pedal, while allowing the steering wheel to return to its natural zero-angle position. With a joystick, you have to maintain that position backwards while deliberately moving toward the center X axis, which is a much more challenging proposition, especially with inertial forces.
Finally, the joystick necessarily either falls victim to one of two (or both) of the following:
1) gorilla-arm when mounted in front of the driver, due to the fact that the operator can't rest any weight on the control.
2) When mounted at or near the console, it requires the exclusive use of the the closest arm, which can also lead to fatigue. In a console-mounted position, it's hard to imagine a positioning system as effective as tilt/telescopic steering wheels to compensate for differing arm lengths and seat positions (which reflect torso and leg length).
The steering wheel may be an old design, but they got it right.
You don't have to memorize for simple counting, you just start at 0 and subtract 1 for a 10 or higher, and add 1 for a 6 or lower. When the count is positive, you have a better chance of getting a 10/face/ace. That's enough to give you a slight advantage, according to what I've read, although statistical advantages don't strictly translate into winnings over any set period of time.
I can't for the life of me understand why they don't use eight decks and reshuffle after four or five. Then the card counting edge will almost never be big enough to give the counters an edge.
Even if there's not a law against it, I would imagine business would go swiftly downhill when you competitor decides to advertise that he doesn't rig his decks.
It takes two people to have harassment. No, it doesn't excuse the behavior, but it does contribute to it, by leaving a clear and open channel of communication. A restraining order doesn't protect you if you go to the home of the person who you filed the order with (in fact, you'll probably get charged for abuse of a restraining order), just like most insurance policies won't cover a stolen vehicle left running. Sure, a crime has been committed, and the cops will still prosecute if/when they find the offender, but the point is that it was easily preventable. Some amount of responsibility lies with both parties, which is the price of living in society. If you know someone is crazy, and especially if you want to avoid them, then take steps to avoid them, like not calling them, not visiting them, and *removing* them as a friend. For a phone call, that's one thing, but for a service where you can explicitly control who can and can not contact you, that's common sense.
I haven't read, nor desire to read, the details of this case, but in many cases people who get into relationships like this, where restraining orders are eventually required, have demonstrably exercised poor judgment in the process. When children fight, it's usually because one provoked the other. You punish the child who acted in violence, but you also counsel the other child on provoking, and possibly impose a punishment for that as well, if the behavior continues. The victim's lack of effort to cut off communications within the domain he or she controls is shenanigans. Hopefully the court sees it as such, and both parties are admonished.
You can tell her, but she'll probably stop listening after "because," at which point she'll begin recalling everything you've ever done wrong, and start reeling them off in a run on sentence not unlike this one, taking the collective, including your most recent attempt to get out of making dinner, to mean that you don't love her, which raises the question of why you're even together, except that you obviously just want your needs satisfied while she does EVERYTHING, and you don't even care.
Either that or she'll just start making dinner without saying anything, in which case you're in *real* trouble. If so, DO NOT EAT THE FOOD, because it's probably poisoned, but also don't let her know that you're not eating the food, because it will only be taken as an insult to her cooking and further enrage her.
We've been waiting 30 years for the solar industry to develop an economical product and it hasn't happened yet.
And subsidizing creates incentive, which hopefully leads to economies of scale. It's not the development of solar that needs a push; it's the adoption. The problem is that people either don't consider the value of solar, or else they only consider the *immediate* benefit of solar, which isn't as great as the long-term benefits. Increasing the immediate benefit, through subsidies or anything else, leverages people's short-term thinking to accomplish long term goals.
This is a common misconception, but you're only required to identify yourself if asked. Carrying a license is obviously required when engaged in the relevant activity (driving, hunting, selling alcohol, etc.)
You grammar Nazis and your missing commas. Fine, it should be: "Scientists in Italy have developed, which will move around the lower digestive tract using legs."
That doesn't really change the meaning, or the news, which is that apparently Italy has developed scientists. I guess the Italians found the large intestine so intriguing that they're placing their scientists inside of it to take pictures and report on their findings, and already they've discovered a new species of spider.
I think they confused "Marge Simpson" and "Lois Griffin," which makes me almost as mad as my wife that time I confused her with Lois Griffin and called her a street-walking whore.
[Flashback to last night] Wife: Honey, what do you say we uh...christen these new sheets, huh? Me: Why honey, you naughty girl. Wife: Hehehe...that's me. Me: You dirty hustler. Wife: Hehehehe... Me: You filthy, stinky prostitute. Wife: Aha, ok I get it... Me: You foul, venereal disease carrying, street-walking whore. Wife: Alright, that's enough!
The entire SG-Anything series blew. Hard. Poor scripts, acting, story, and effects. What less could anyone ask for? How could any aspect of the show have been worse? There were *zero* redeeming qualities, from continuity to plausibility, from fugly actresses to washed-up has-been guest stars. The series would have been cheaper & more exciting if they spliced in mashups of MacGyver. I would rather eat a burger from Jack in the Box than watch that show ever again.
Wireless N and gigabit Ethernet aren't cheap like b/g with 100Mb Ethernet
Oh they are.. they just don't feel like passing the savings on to you. After all, in the consumer's mind, more expensive == faster/better, so give the customer what he wants.
Gigabit's been included in desktop motherboards, even many bargain basement brands and models, since at least '07, and has virtually 100% market penetration these days. 802.11n has been standard in laptops for about at long, and available in $15 USB adapters since at least the beginning of this year. Both technologies are already old enough to be retired, and would be, were they any other aspect of PC technology. The technology is cheap and plentiful -- just not in router form for some god-knows-why reason.
I've had a gigabit switch for over 4 years now, which provides several things: First, it gives me gigabit where I need it: On my LAN, which is the only place I'm going to get it anyway. Second, it lets me avoid router manufacturers trying to rake me over the coals for gigabit + n in the same box. Third, it gives me some degree of flexibility, in that if either the router or the switch goes down, I can replace it specifically and *still* will have spent less than Gbit + n.
Slashdot Mirror
Great New Article Advice.
If there are improprieties in this process, then they can and should be dealt with at an appropriate time. But there's a saying about cutting off your nose to spite your face... In other words, it's stupid to punish someone by refusing something that benefits you.
Vaccinating health workers not only benefits the workers themselves, but the patients as well by reducing the potential vectors of infection. There's a lot of misinformation spreading about these vaccinations, and it's unfortunate that they have even invaded the scientific and armchair scientific communities. The delivery mechanisms for these vaccines have been well-tested over decades, and the risks of complications from the flu clearly outweigh the risks of vaccination, even (especially) for healthy individuals.
You could argue that people should have the right to decide what they allow in their bodies, and I would agree. Nobody is being forced to take anything -- people are free to leave their jobs if they disagree with the terms of employment, just as if they had ethical reservations about any other aspect of their job.
More importantly, in my opinion, people also have a right to straightforward and factual information about the risks involved; an area where the media has been less than forthcoming. Regardless of the reason(s) for this, about which I could only speculate, the facts surrounding vaccination are easily verifiable and well supported by scientific research from independent organizations, and the media should not be lending authority to misguided, if well-intentioned, individuals providing anecdotes to the contrary.
People are remarkably bad at judging and managing risk, as explained rather well (if a bit melodramatically) in many of Nassim Taleb's books. Yes, there is a very small risk of a given individual dying from the flu, and at best, a vaccine decreases those odds further for that individual. It's possible that some people who are vaccinated may die from the vaccination itself, even if they never contracted or never would have contracted the flu. BUT, a) it's impossible to have a-priori knowledge of who will and will not be infected, and b) a vaccinated population decreases the risk for *everybody*, including those most at risk of complications, because a vaccinated population, as a whole, is a poor host for the disease. People's poor perception of risk is one of the reasons we have mandatory auto insurance; because many people assume that they will never cause an accident, and many of them are right, but some still go on to cause accidents.
Spreading and managing risk is one of the benefits of living in a society versus living off in the wilderness somewhere where all of the risk is directly borne by the individual and there is no backup plan if you make poor choices. If anything, the fact that this vaccine is *not* mandatory should be the only conflict of conscience for any rational thinker, except that when possible, from a historical and ethical perspective, it seems to be more productive to convince people of the best course of action than to force them into it. That said, I would sincerely hope, given more dire consequences such as a potent and easily transmissible outbreak of Ebola (and indeed the existence of a vaccination), that the government would mandate vaccinations for everyone. The fact that the H1N1 vaccination is simply a condition for exposing oneself to sick people should be entirely without controversy.
Sounds like somebody's been watching too many X-Files reruns...
There will be a vague gray fuzzy knock on your door shortly. Do not remove any of the crawlies from under your skin -- there's no time for that now. Pack only what you need, wrap your cash in tinfoil to attenuate the signal from the embedded tracking devices, and just RUN!!! When you arrive at the previously agreed-upon meeting place, then we can use my ultrasonic humidifier to examine you and find out how many organs they've already stolen. Obviously the brain is a leading candidate...
It's not about the effect, it's about the intent. The effect and reaction are up to *us*.
Yes and no. The frequencies you state are correct, but there are much larger differences between the standards, and that's not why they chose to use the mains frequency. It was because using the mains frequency allowed for fewer components in manufacturing, which allowed for cheaper sets. It's much easier to sync the vertical ramp with the signal you already have conveniently being provided by the mains, than to include an oscillator + frequency divider*, especially with the technology back then.
But there's more:
A) Incandescent lights don't flicker appreciably at those frequencies; they output a nearly constant level of light proportional to the RMS power. That's because filaments work by emitting light through heating, and the temperature doesn't change appreciably in 1/60th (or 1/50th) of a second. It's also why incandescent lights "fade out" when you turn them off, much like an electric heating element on a stove, although usually over a much shorter time frame.
B) Syncing a display's refresh rate with the ambient lighting *increases* the apparent flicker. If you're still using a CRT, and you have fluorescent or compact fluorescent lighting, try setting the CRT refresh rate to your mains frequency, and you'll see horrible flickering. Next select the next highest frequency (even 1Hz off, but not a multiple of the mains frequency), and you'll notice that the flickering has virtually disappeared. (This effect is more pronounced on "modern" multisync CRTs, because the persistence of the phosphors used is shorter than in fixed 50/60Hz televisions).
C) The other major factors that affect the flicker of the display, aside from refresh rate, is the phosphorous coating of the CRT, and the power of the electron beam (which is/was a function of the brightness control). As alluded to above, the coating was specifically selected to provide optimum persistence, and the brightness control was provided to compensate for phosphor burn-out, since a tiny bit of phosphor is evaporated over time, which necessitated an increase in voltage to obtain the same level of brightness.
* Low frequency oscillators are notoriously unstable and difficult to calibrate, so you'd have to use a higher frequency oscillator and divide it in half until you get 50Hz. This was all before solid state components, and that's a lot of vacuum tubes!
French is on its way down, not up. Once the diplomatic language of Europe, it has long since been supplanted by English. In almost every non-French speaking country, you're far more likely to find English speakers than French, be it European, Mid-East, Asian, African, or South American. In sheer numbers, Mandarin Chinese is the most popular language, but that won't do you much good outside of China. Spanish and English are essentially tied for second, with variations according to who's counting, and the methodology used. Spanish will come in handy in much of South America, though not so much in Brazil, French Guiana, or Suriname. Outside of South America, it has limited utility, although it shares much in common with other Romantic languages like French and Italian.
In my opinion, the benefit of a native English speaker learning a second language is not necessarily in its practical value, but in gaining a deeper understanding of how language influences thought and communication. Many languages have verbs, adjectives, and of course idioms, that simply don't exist in other languages. From that perspective, it's not so important *which* language you learn, as it is *that* you learn another language at all.
The thing about a steering wheel vs. joystick is that the former translates a large change in angle to a much smaller change in wheel angle, while a joystick does the exact opposite. You could certainly engineer a joystick with similar characteristics, but it would take up a lot of room -- hence the invention of the steering wheel.
The minor corrections that we continuously, yet nearly unconsciously, make while driving would become burdensome when applied to a joystick. In a simulation like a video game, there are no road imperfections, steering dead zones, alignment, or tire balancing issues, and therefore mastering the joystick is quite possible (but by no means simple). Many games also employ variable stick-to-wheel angle ratios, so that a given stick angle at a low speed results in a larger change in wheel angle than at higher speed. These would likely be necessary for real vehicles, but they make it difficult to predict directional changes at a constant speed, and increasingly difficult with speed AND direction changes, since stick deflection must be increased or decreased as velocity changes.
Even absent such "assistant" technologies, without independent controls steering while changing velocity becomes more challenging, not less. Say you're braking around a turn, which is followed by a short length of straight road and a stop sign/light. With independent controls, you maintain more or less static pressure on the brake pedal, while allowing the steering wheel to return to its natural zero-angle position. With a joystick, you have to maintain that position backwards while deliberately moving toward the center X axis, which is a much more challenging proposition, especially with inertial forces.
Finally, the joystick necessarily either falls victim to one of two (or both) of the following:
1) gorilla-arm when mounted in front of the driver, due to the fact that the operator can't rest any weight on the control.
2) When mounted at or near the console, it requires the exclusive use of the the closest arm, which can also lead to fatigue. In a console-mounted position, it's hard to imagine a positioning system as effective as tilt/telescopic steering wheels to compensate for differing arm lengths and seat positions (which reflect torso and leg length).
The steering wheel may be an old design, but they got it right.
Followed shortly thereafter by a specialized add-on.
Right, right.. the only way to win is not to play.
I tried to collect the Powerball jackpot based on that principle, but for some reason they just laughed at me.
You don't have to memorize for simple counting, you just start at 0 and subtract 1 for a 10 or higher, and add 1 for a 6 or lower. When the count is positive, you have a better chance of getting a 10/face/ace. That's enough to give you a slight advantage, according to what I've read, although statistical advantages don't strictly translate into winnings over any set period of time.
I can't for the life of me understand why they don't use eight decks and reshuffle after four or five. Then the card counting edge will almost never be big enough to give the counters an edge.
Even if there's not a law against it, I would imagine business would go swiftly downhill when you competitor decides to advertise that he doesn't rig his decks.
http://law.justia.com/idaho/codes/49ftoc/490030016.html
http://law.justia.com/westvirginia/codes/17b/wvc17b-2-9.html
http://law.justia.com/maine/codes/title29-ach0sec0/title29-asec1408.html
http://law.justia.com/virginia/codes/toc4602000/46.2-104.html
Shall I go on?
It takes two people to have harassment. No, it doesn't excuse the behavior, but it does contribute to it, by leaving a clear and open channel of communication. A restraining order doesn't protect you if you go to the home of the person who you filed the order with (in fact, you'll probably get charged for abuse of a restraining order), just like most insurance policies won't cover a stolen vehicle left running. Sure, a crime has been committed, and the cops will still prosecute if/when they find the offender, but the point is that it was easily preventable. Some amount of responsibility lies with both parties, which is the price of living in society. If you know someone is crazy, and especially if you want to avoid them, then take steps to avoid them, like not calling them, not visiting them, and *removing* them as a friend. For a phone call, that's one thing, but for a service where you can explicitly control who can and can not contact you, that's common sense.
I haven't read, nor desire to read, the details of this case, but in many cases people who get into relationships like this, where restraining orders are eventually required, have demonstrably exercised poor judgment in the process. When children fight, it's usually because one provoked the other. You punish the child who acted in violence, but you also counsel the other child on provoking, and possibly impose a punishment for that as well, if the behavior continues. The victim's lack of effort to cut off communications within the domain he or she controls is shenanigans. Hopefully the court sees it as such, and both parties are admonished.
There's no C in SyFy. Or I/Q, for that matter.
You can tell her, but she'll probably stop listening after "because," at which point she'll begin recalling everything you've ever done wrong, and start reeling them off in a run on sentence not unlike this one, taking the collective, including your most recent attempt to get out of making dinner, to mean that you don't love her, which raises the question of why you're even together, except that you obviously just want your needs satisfied while she does EVERYTHING, and you don't even care.
Either that or she'll just start making dinner without saying anything, in which case you're in *real* trouble. If so, DO NOT EAT THE FOOD, because it's probably poisoned, but also don't let her know that you're not eating the food, because it will only be taken as an insult to her cooking and further enrage her.
Nominal is not a synonym for minimal, small, or trivial, even when modified with "very."
A polished turd is still a turd.
Well, yeah.. and a polished diamond is still carbon. Never underestimate the power of shiny!
We've been waiting 30 years for the solar industry to develop an economical product and it hasn't happened yet.
And subsidizing creates incentive, which hopefully leads to economies of scale. It's not the development of solar that needs a push; it's the adoption. The problem is that people either don't consider the value of solar, or else they only consider the *immediate* benefit of solar, which isn't as great as the long-term benefits. Increasing the immediate benefit, through subsidies or anything else, leverages people's short-term thinking to accomplish long term goals.
This is a common misconception, but you're only required to identify yourself if asked. Carrying a license is obviously required when engaged in the relevant activity (driving, hunting, selling alcohol, etc.)
You grammar Nazis and your missing commas. Fine, it should be: "Scientists in Italy have developed, which will move around the lower digestive tract using legs."
That doesn't really change the meaning, or the news, which is that apparently Italy has developed scientists. I guess the Italians found the large intestine so intriguing that they're placing their scientists inside of it to take pictures and report on their findings, and already they've discovered a new species of spider.
I believe their slogan is: "We put the BS in BSA."
I think they confused "Marge Simpson" and "Lois Griffin," which makes me almost as mad as my wife that time I confused her with Lois Griffin and called her a street-walking whore.
[Flashback to last night]
Wife: Honey, what do you say we uh...christen these new sheets, huh?
Me: Why honey, you naughty girl.
Wife: Hehehe...that's me.
Me: You dirty hustler.
Wife: Hehehehe...
Me: You filthy, stinky prostitute.
Wife: Aha, ok I get it...
Me: You foul, venereal disease carrying, street-walking whore.
Wife: Alright, that's enough!
Shit, I just did it again, didn't I?
There goes my idea 2^2 using math problems in the middle of my posts. :(
OR DID IT?!?
The entire SG-Anything series blew. Hard. Poor scripts, acting, story, and effects. What less could anyone ask for? How could any aspect of the show have been worse? There were *zero* redeeming qualities, from continuity to plausibility, from fugly actresses to washed-up has-been guest stars. The series would have been cheaper & more exciting if they spliced in mashups of MacGyver. I would rather eat a burger from Jack in the Box than watch that show ever again.
Wireless N and gigabit Ethernet aren't cheap like b/g with 100Mb Ethernet
Oh they are.. they just don't feel like passing the savings on to you. After all, in the consumer's mind, more expensive == faster/better, so give the customer what he wants.
Gigabit's been included in desktop motherboards, even many bargain basement brands and models, since at least '07, and has virtually 100% market penetration these days. 802.11n has been standard in laptops for about at long, and available in $15 USB adapters since at least the beginning of this year. Both technologies are already old enough to be retired, and would be, were they any other aspect of PC technology. The technology is cheap and plentiful -- just not in router form for some god-knows-why reason.
I've had a gigabit switch for over 4 years now, which provides several things: First, it gives me gigabit where I need it: On my LAN, which is the only place I'm going to get it anyway. Second, it lets me avoid router manufacturers trying to rake me over the coals for gigabit + n in the same box. Third, it gives me some degree of flexibility, in that if either the router or the switch goes down, I can replace it specifically and *still* will have spent less than Gbit + n.