It is highly illegal in the U.S. to send junk fax, so $500 dollar fines should work quite nicely to stop it.
It shall be unlawful for any person within the United States -... to use any telephone facsimile
machine, computer, or other device to send an unsolicited
advertisement to a telephone facsimile machine; or...
United States Code, Ttitle 47 , Chapter 5 , Subchapter II , Part I , Sec. 227.
If you are clever you should also be able work out a good set of claims against solitications to your cell phone using that section of the USC, too.
Reading the letter of the code, it should also apply to spam, but lawyers seemed to have dropped the ball on that one.
Yes, it would be a pile of crap, remember that the new EULA prohibits benchmarking. Adding Palladium on top of the existing Windows or.NET code base would add to the tower of crap, but the longer Microsoft's collapse plays out the more expensive it is for busnesses, consumers, and tax paying citizens.
Even the top managment in Microsoft are now publicly admitting that Microsoft's products cannot compete on technical merits. However, this looks like a play to fast track Palladium. Now that OS X and Linux cover most or all workstation needs, there is not time to rewrite Windows from the ground up and a lock on what code is/isn't allowed to run is the only way to continue the monopoly and to try to bring the company's books out of the red.
It looks like Microsoft is beginning to play the Palladium card. It is in the process of dropping Win2000, squeezing Windows users into License 6, thus controlling future upgrades. Microsoft also needs Hollywood-style DRM to keep even weak competition from killig it in the marketplace. Hollywood wants DRM and will help Bill get it.
Or, even simpler, if it's not just a play to fast track Palladium, then it looks like it a move to delay the collapse long enough for the execs to offload their stock options.
One of the major problems (among many others) with software patents is that the patent far exceeds the useful life of the technology. So much advances (or just plain changes) in two years that a ten year patent keeps that idea out, in effect, permanently. The life of the patent must scale corespondingly with the life of the technology in questions.
Given the limited tools available, there are only so many
efficient solutions to any given task or problem. So, most computer programs are going to fall under the same category as math, algorithms, formulae, and observation of natural phenomena.
I have not yet seen any evidence supporting the oft seen mantra Microsoft/Enron/Worldcom
alone is sitting on enough cash that they could do XYZ. Sony, Disney
and the rest of the RIAA/MPAA crowd do have a strong vested interest in DRM
and could make money off it in the short term. Microsoft risks further
alienating their shrinking user base with further decreases in functionality
and interoperability, but must desperately need the cash flow to try betting
on DRM:
First off, 1998's book keeping produced a discrepancy of about $20 billion:
"[microsoft] declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when
the cost of options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of outstanding
options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18 billion, a...
Secondly, the world economy is and has been sluggish and the U.S. economy
is in a recession, it's probably safe to say that the $18 billion loss from
1998 wasn't recovered in 1999. If the same accounting practices continued
up till the Enron publicity, then it's safe to say that a similar adjustment
(say $10-25 billion loss per year) can be applied for the years since 1998.
Doesn't this co-incide with Bill's sudden interest in not being CEO?
Next, sales of MS-Windows, MS-Office, and Xbox have all been underwhelming
recently. Likewise, MS-Outlook, MS-Exchange, MS-Passport, MS-IIS have
all been rated three thumbs down in this age of increasing network security.
It's hard to see which products are bringing in money for the company
or which of their products even have a future. Linux is in the
server room and catching up on the desktop. Macintosh OS X just did
a complete end-run around NT,Win2000.
Lastly, Microsoft is a company that has grown through acquisition
of products and smaller companies rather than innovation. Most
MS 'innovations' or their key components have been acquired from outside
by deals (Access, Frontpage, Explorer, DOS, disk compression) or via BSD-like
licenses. Innovation leads to long term viability, see 3M for
example. Acquisition-only leads to a typical dot-bomb stock comet,
see Framfab for example.
Combine the first three above and odds are that this puts Microsoft into
the red for 4 years running. At best, there are occasional visits to the
break even point, but these visits wouldn't do more than barely dent the
accumulated debt. The last point says stick a fork in it, it's done.
So while Microsoft may have an interest in DRM, I don't believe they have
the cash to pull it off single handedly. That looks like pure myth.
More likely, looks like they'll need MPAA/RIAA to help get all the
friends that money can buy to avoid liquidation.
It's the last quarter of the article that's most interesting, starting with "Strangely, Thompson has been unable to pin down how the chip was accomplishing the task..."
It was an article "Evolving A Conscious Machine" by Gary Taubes in Discover from June 1998.
I have the citation offline, but you can find
the whole article by searching the online archive for june 1998 and the word "genetic"
Shortcomings in defining the scope of the problem seem to be one of the larger problems in applied GAs. Makes for some amusing results in the realm of virtual simulations.
Yes, I agree that they offer many products on which they lose money, which they try to gain back in other ways. The actual numbers may be somewhat different than what folks expect.
1 Given that the world economy is sluggish and the U.S. economy is in a recession, it's probably safe to say that the $18 billion loss from 1998 wasn't recovered in 1999.
2 In fact, since income from MS-Windows, MS-Office, and Xbox have all been underwhelming recently, it's hard to see which products are bringing in money for the company.
3 1998's book keeping produced a discrepancy of about $20 billion.
"[microsoft]
declared a profit of $4.5 billion in 1998; when the cost of
options awarded that year, plus the change in the value of
outstanding options, is deducted, the firm made a loss of $18
billion, a...
If the same accounting practices continued up till the Enron publicity, then it's safe to say that a similar adjustment (say minus $10-25 billion) can be applied for these years.
Combine these three and, odds are, this puts the company into the red for 4 years running. At best there are occasional visits to the break even point, but these visits wouldn't do more than barely dent the accumulated debt.
Lastly, the company has grown through acquisition of products and smaller companies. Most 'innovations' or their key components have been acquired from outside by deals (Access, Frontpage, Explorer, DOS, disk compression) or via BSD-like licenses.
There are few, if any, markets to grow into now and acquirable competition/innovations are largely out of the picture. Given the move of focus onto engineering marketing campains and legislative campains it looks like their time may be up...
Incarceration is big money when a country has privatized prisons like in the U.S. As long as there's economic incentive, expect that number to grow.
Though last I heard, it's still cheaper to send 'em to a reasonable college for a year, including food, books, and dorm, than a year in prison. Obviously by the time they get to prison, it's too late, but getting teenagers into college would be a better investment for the country.
But people like expensive and inefficient, i.e. corrective action, rather than inexpensive and efficient, i.e. proactive. Look at the "Anti-virus" industry as an example of the former and OpenBSD or SELinux as and example of the latter. Guess which method gets more press.
Articles like this seem more an attempt to lend credibility to Microsoft than to spread discontent or uncertainty among OpenSource/FreeSoftware users or the newly curious. Afterall, they're trying to get you not to ask, "Is Microsoft as good as RedHat?". The same can be said of the Microsoft attendance at LinuxWorld -- it was more a gimick to gain credibility at a time when they're losing it rapidly.
In contrast to RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, Suse, Slackware, etc. Microsoft has stifled competition and innovation to the point of being found guilty in court. In fact, upon closer examinitaion it could look like Microsoft has been stifling the U.S. IT sector for few years. Eventually even the MBAs are going to figure that one out.
As many have said more articulately, as long as RedHat puts out GPL software year after year, things are great. Competition is thriving. As long as there is competition, the distros rapidly adapt and improve...
...and money is being made by those using GNU / Open Source.
I use and rather like OS X daily. I'd still prefer KDE, but the Mac OS give me a chance to offload some maintenance problems like keeping track of printers or dealing with data in legacy formats e.g. MS-Word.
The perfect target audience for Macintosh is MS-Windows users, though it's not too bad for development. Most non-tech types are only interested in web, e-mail, word processing and maybe even a spreadsheet or two. The uptime and battery life are additional bonuses. Some people I know try to choose their notebooks based on battery life.
Yeah, another example is that Microsoft has made sure that MS-Word can only do mailmerge from Filemaker if both are using MS-Windows. This is an ODBC issue so the onus is on MS to get it fixed.
But since it's not in their short term bottom line extend the monopoly best interest, fat chance of it happening. Sort of like their hard coded sabotaged LDAP query in MS-Outlook.
I use TextEdit when I can, because MS-Word is too slow (IMHO) even on a G4. I wish I could run Word5 without having to go into "Classic" mode. If the source code were out for the older versions, then they could be ported to OS X or KDE and make import filters for the newer formats. MS-Word sort of hit apogee at MS-Word 2.0 for Windows and MS-Word 5 for Macintosh.
One reason engineering students don't take more courses out of major (like humanities) is there isn't enough time.
This was the sole reason I opted not to take my first degree in engingeering / comp. sci. -- there was not even time to take a foreign language. English is good at work, after all the Internet + Web is documented in English and English-like pidgins, but if you want the contacts needed for travel, you need to be able to at least scrape by in a foreign language (e.g. German or Chinese)
Yes, on paper there were many credits available for electives and the guidance councelors swore up and down that it could be done. However, after examining the schedules, it was apparent that there really was no time left for courses that weren't absolutely required.
Having native support would be more exiting, but games of any kind are a key factor in adoption of any given platform for the desktop.
Games seem to have kept the MS desktop, alive the last few years. Remember MS leveraging the market for DOS/Win95 to get support for WinNT? Odds are that without forcing NT versions, MS would not have gotten NT off the ground.
As more games start to get ported to Linux, more people will do as you do and never boot their MS-Windows partitions. Later, those buying new systems to play the new games aren't going to see the need to have MS-Windows at all.
The spreadsheet, i.e.Visicalc and its successor / ripoff Lotus, is probably the reason there are computers in every office and home office.
Games are fun and they are what keep MS-Windows around for a year or two more until more ports are made. However, as fun as they are you don't need games, but you do need to do your finances. That is if you like to live at home.
Quicken, GNUCash and others are of the same genre as Visicalc. They're not killer apps like Visicalc but they do address the modern need of managing financial data. If it comes to need vs want, needs generally win over time. So, yeah, this does pave the way for Linux on the home desktop.
IIRC only congress can cause the U.S. to declare war. However, the U.S. president does have the authority to send in military units and create a situation that will lead to congress declaring war. Having the authority to send military units is also different from having the support of international communities and laws.
More power to the Australians. For a good measure, they can add a clause that the execs should be rolled naked in jellyfish prior to sentencing.
What makes you think that MS is complying?
Look at the details of disclosure, especially the loopholes for security and to whom access to the code will be granted.
Fileformats are a key issue and do not seem to be addressed either. It's not just an issue for competitors. How many MS users have upgraded because of changes in MS-Word, MS-Excel, or MS-PPT file formats? Also, if you go over to renting software, License 6.0, the day you give up your subscription is the day you lose access to your own data...unless those files can be read by a non-MS program. Additionally, the DMCA probably could be used as a hinder unless the file specs are public.
Apply Occam's Razor to the ZDNet and CNet articles and you'll see that, like most such press releases, there's really nothing there but a few kernels buried here and there.
From the ZDnet article : if other companies got too much access to the inner workings of the operating system.
It said that would allow them to "clone" Windows, prompting Microsoft to stop investing in research and development on the operating system.
Perhaps this is a form of not complying or a softening up to the end of the MS-Office and MS-Windows product line.
First, the Social Security Account Number is not public info nor is it an identification number. Despite attempts by many companies and organizations to use it as such.
Secondly, the public ID system in Sweden and Finland works very well because the cultural values are quite different than the U.S. The number itself is public and in general openness is much more valued and abuse of the number will be relatively quickly discovered and dealt with.
A specific example would be tax info. For such a system to work in the U.S. tax info would have to enter the public domain like in Sweden. Too many have way too much to hide to allow that to happen.
To go off on a tangent to illustrate the openness, a lot of EU material is ordered from Sweden from UK citizens because freedom of information is part of the culture, having been written as separate article, Offentlighetsprincipen, of the constitution back in 1766. It makes the U.S. freedom of information act look pretty small and pale and tax records are not included. The UK and France have everything default to being closed for 30 years. Given that the life of magnetic tape (not to address the data format) is generally less than 10 years even under optimal storage conditions, this has a lot of ramifications.
Offentlighetsprincipen could have saved the EU quite a lot of embarassement and expenses.
This was a clever solution for a group travelling together. Plus their employer probably footed the bill for the cell phone charges...
But the main connection to the Internet was the phone and that is expensive in the U.S. If the prices were instead reasonable, they could have used GPRS or something similar. "yous" there on the East Coast could have a
better cellphone pricing model. A commitment to standards and reasonable pricing for cell phones would be a boon for mobile computing in the U.S.
In some areas it might make sense to consider draft horses and sledges and drag the trees to the nearest road. They're probably cheaper to operate and less impact on the terrain. Certain types of soft terrain or areas where you may not build roads are examples. If the cutting is done when the ground is frozen, movement is easier. Adding modern materials or design (tracks?) to the sledge could reduce the number of draft horses used.
Six legged walking machines definitely have a hi-tech coolness, but are a young technology. Four legged walking machines have been refined by us for thousands of years for the specific task of dragging heavy things.
The power of the DMCA is not necessarily in court. The threat of a long drawn out legal battle is usually enough to get what the large corps want, sort of a reverse "O.J." strategy, if you will. The DMCA can be milked by RIAA and others for many years without actually having to be tested. That won't lessen either it's application or damage to the IT sector.
It would be a good chance to actually verify the effectiveness of proposed methods for shifting asteroid orbits. e.g. like painting the asteroid black or white. It is cheaper, faster, and easier to try this on a nearby asteroid like this one, though mistakes could be more problematic than for a more distant rock.
Or, more cautiously, it is a good chance to gather data in preparation for testing those methods.
Besides the marketing, political and economic benefits of the War on Freedom (aka War on Terrorism) can be gained from transfering the momentum to a War on Asteroids. The former being an internal (to Earth) conflict further holding back advancement.
or to see how gullible people are
on
What, Me Worry?
·
· Score: 1
In the 80's one of the U.S. based science magazines ran an adevertisement for an "all-natural pH balanced skin moisturizer" IIRC for April 1st. The next issue had to explain to too many people that it was a joke.
By themselves, the square miles of asphalt and tar paper create heat islands which tend to alter the weather down wind.
Another source is waste heat from air conditioners.
One article a while ago pointed out that all those fscking airconditioning units radiating into the street raise urban temperatures. I think it was 3 F or 5 F.
Re:Danny Dunn, Invisible Boy
on
Spy Fly
·
· Score: 2
Good read from what I remember. Could the Berkeley robot use beamed power like in the book? The dragonfly used microwaves.
I missed the power supply in the article, but if the power requirements are low enough it might be able to ride on other radio signals. Wasn't that a goal of Tesla, to be able to draw electricity from the air?
Slashdot Mirror
If you are clever you should also be able work out a good set of claims against solitications to your cell phone using that section of the USC, too.
Reading the letter of the code, it should also apply to spam, but lawyers seemed to have dropped the ball on that one.
Even the top managment in Microsoft are now publicly admitting that Microsoft's products cannot compete on technical merits. However, this looks like a play to fast track Palladium. Now that OS X and Linux cover most or all workstation needs, there is not time to rewrite Windows from the ground up and a lock on what code is/isn't allowed to run is the only way to continue the monopoly and to try to bring the company's books out of the red.
It looks like Microsoft is beginning to play the Palladium card. It is in the process of dropping Win2000, squeezing Windows users into License 6, thus controlling future upgrades. Microsoft also needs Hollywood-style DRM to keep even weak competition from killig it in the marketplace. Hollywood wants DRM and will help Bill get it.
Or, even simpler, if it's not just a play to fast track Palladium, then it looks like it a move to delay the collapse long enough for the execs to offload their stock options.
Given the limited tools available, there are only so many efficient solutions to any given task or problem. So, most computer programs are going to fall under the same category as math, algorithms, formulae, and observation of natural phenomena.
I have not yet seen any evidence supporting the oft seen mantra Microsoft/Enron/Worldcom alone is sitting on enough cash that they could do XYZ. Sony, Disney and the rest of the RIAA/MPAA crowd do have a strong vested interest in DRM and could make money off it in the short term. Microsoft risks further alienating their shrinking user base with further decreases in functionality and interoperability, but must desperately need the cash flow to try betting on DRM:
First off, 1998's book keeping produced a discrepancy of about $20 billion:
Secondly, the world economy is and has been sluggish and the U.S. economy is in a recession, it's probably safe to say that the $18 billion loss from 1998 wasn't recovered in 1999. If the same accounting practices continued up till the Enron publicity, then it's safe to say that a similar adjustment (say $10-25 billion loss per year) can be applied for the years since 1998. Doesn't this co-incide with Bill's sudden interest in not being CEO?
Next, sales of MS-Windows, MS-Office, and Xbox have all been underwhelming recently. Likewise, MS-Outlook, MS-Exchange, MS-Passport, MS-IIS have all been rated three thumbs down in this age of increasing network security. It's hard to see which products are bringing in money for the company or which of their products even have a future. Linux is in the server room and catching up on the desktop. Macintosh OS X just did a complete end-run around NT,Win2000.
Lastly, Microsoft is a company that has grown through acquisition of products and smaller companies rather than innovation. Most MS 'innovations' or their key components have been acquired from outside by deals (Access, Frontpage, Explorer, DOS, disk compression) or via BSD-like licenses. Innovation leads to long term viability, see 3M for example. Acquisition-only leads to a typical dot-bomb stock comet, see Framfab for example.
Combine the first three above and odds are that this puts Microsoft into the red for 4 years running. At best, there are occasional visits to the break even point, but these visits wouldn't do more than barely dent the accumulated debt. The last point says stick a fork in it, it's done.
So while Microsoft may have an interest in DRM, I don't believe they have the cash to pull it off single handedly. That looks like pure myth. More likely, looks like they'll need MPAA/RIAA to help get all the friends that money can buy to avoid liquidation.
It was an article "Evolving A Conscious Machine" by Gary Taubes in Discover from June 1998. I have the citation offline, but you can find the whole article by searching the online archive for june 1998 and the word "genetic"
Shortcomings in defining the scope of the problem seem to be one of the larger problems in applied GAs. Makes for some amusing results in the realm of virtual simulations.
1 Given that the world economy is sluggish and the U.S. economy is in a recession, it's probably safe to say that the $18 billion loss from 1998 wasn't recovered in 1999.
2 In fact, since income from MS-Windows, MS-Office, and Xbox have all been underwhelming recently, it's hard to see which products are bringing in money for the company.
3 1998's book keeping produced a discrepancy of about $20 billion.
If the same accounting practices continued up till the Enron publicity, then it's safe to say that a similar adjustment (say minus $10-25 billion) can be applied for these years.Combine these three and, odds are, this puts the company into the red for 4 years running. At best there are occasional visits to the break even point, but these visits wouldn't do more than barely dent the accumulated debt.
Lastly, the company has grown through acquisition of products and smaller companies. Most 'innovations' or their key components have been acquired from outside by deals (Access, Frontpage, Explorer, DOS, disk compression) or via BSD-like licenses.
There are few, if any, markets to grow into now and acquirable competition/innovations are largely out of the picture. Given the move of focus onto engineering marketing campains and legislative campains it looks like their time may be up...
More than one item (*cough*xbox*cough*) in your list may be a loss leader, or just seem to act like one.
Though last I heard, it's still cheaper to send 'em to a reasonable college for a year, including food, books, and dorm, than a year in prison. Obviously by the time they get to prison, it's too late, but getting teenagers into college would be a better investment for the country.
But people like expensive and inefficient, i.e. corrective action, rather than inexpensive and efficient, i.e. proactive. Look at the "Anti-virus" industry as an example of the former and OpenBSD or SELinux as and example of the latter. Guess which method gets more press.
In contrast to RedHat, Debian, Mandrake, Suse, Slackware, etc. Microsoft has stifled competition and innovation to the point of being found guilty in court. In fact, upon closer examinitaion it could look like Microsoft has been stifling the U.S. IT sector for few years. Eventually even the MBAs are going to figure that one out.
As many have said more articulately, as long as RedHat puts out GPL software year after year, things are great. Competition is thriving. As long as there is competition, the distros rapidly adapt and improve...
The perfect target audience for Macintosh is MS-Windows users, though it's not too bad for development. Most non-tech types are only interested in web, e-mail, word processing and maybe even a spreadsheet or two. The uptime and battery life are additional bonuses. Some people I know try to choose their notebooks based on battery life.
But since it's not in their short term bottom line extend the monopoly best interest, fat chance of it happening. Sort of like their hard coded sabotaged LDAP query in MS-Outlook.
I use TextEdit when I can, because MS-Word is too slow (IMHO) even on a G4. I wish I could run Word5 without having to go into "Classic" mode. If the source code were out for the older versions, then they could be ported to OS X or KDE and make import filters for the newer formats. MS-Word sort of hit apogee at MS-Word 2.0 for Windows and MS-Word 5 for Macintosh.
Yes, on paper there were many credits available for electives and the guidance councelors swore up and down that it could be done. However, after examining the schedules, it was apparent that there really was no time left for courses that weren't absolutely required.
As more games start to get ported to Linux, more people will do as you do and never boot their MS-Windows partitions. Later, those buying new systems to play the new games aren't going to see the need to have MS-Windows at all.
Games are fun and they are what keep MS-Windows around for a year or two more until more ports are made. However, as fun as they are you don't need games, but you do need to do your finances. That is if you like to live at home.
Quicken, GNUCash and others are of the same genre as Visicalc. They're not killer apps like Visicalc but they do address the modern need of managing financial data. If it comes to need vs want, needs generally win over time. So, yeah, this does pave the way for Linux on the home desktop.
More power to the Australians. For a good measure, they can add a clause that the execs should be rolled naked in jellyfish prior to sentencing.
Fileformats are a key issue and do not seem to be addressed either. It's not just an issue for competitors. How many MS users have upgraded because of changes in MS-Word, MS-Excel, or MS-PPT file formats? Also, if you go over to renting software, License 6.0, the day you give up your subscription is the day you lose access to your own data...unless those files can be read by a non-MS program. Additionally, the DMCA probably could be used as a hinder unless the file specs are public.
Apply Occam's Razor to the ZDNet and CNet articles and you'll see that, like most such press releases, there's really nothing there but a few kernels buried here and there. From the ZDnet article : if other companies got too much access to the inner workings of the operating system. It said that would allow them to "clone" Windows, prompting Microsoft to stop investing in research and development on the operating system. Perhaps this is a form of not complying or a softening up to the end of the MS-Office and MS-Windows product line.
Secondly, the public ID system in Sweden and Finland works very well because the cultural values are quite different than the U.S. The number itself is public and in general openness is much more valued and abuse of the number will be relatively quickly discovered and dealt with. A specific example would be tax info. For such a system to work in the U.S. tax info would have to enter the public domain like in Sweden. Too many have way too much to hide to allow that to happen.
To go off on a tangent to illustrate the openness, a lot of EU material is ordered from Sweden from UK citizens because freedom of information is part of the culture, having been written as separate article, Offentlighetsprincipen, of the constitution back in 1766. It makes the U.S. freedom of information act look pretty small and pale and tax records are not included. The UK and France have everything default to being closed for 30 years. Given that the life of magnetic tape (not to address the data format) is generally less than 10 years even under optimal storage conditions, this has a lot of ramifications.
Offentlighetsprincipen could have saved the EU quite a lot of embarassement and expenses.
But the main connection to the Internet was the phone and that is expensive in the U.S. If the prices were instead reasonable, they could have used GPRS or something similar. "yous" there on the East Coast could have a better cellphone pricing model. A commitment to standards and reasonable pricing for cell phones would be a boon for mobile computing in the U.S.
In some areas it might make sense to consider draft horses and sledges and drag the trees to the nearest road. They're probably cheaper to operate and less impact on the terrain. Certain types of soft terrain or areas where you may not build roads are examples. If the cutting is done when the ground is frozen, movement is easier. Adding modern materials or design (tracks?) to the sledge could reduce the number of draft horses used.
Six legged walking machines definitely have a hi-tech coolness, but are a young technology. Four legged walking machines have been refined by us for thousands of years for the specific task of dragging heavy things.
The power of the DMCA is not necessarily in court. The threat of a long drawn out legal battle is usually enough to get what the large corps want, sort of a reverse "O.J." strategy, if you will. The DMCA can be milked by RIAA and others for many years without actually having to be tested. That won't lessen either it's application or damage to the IT sector.
Or, more cautiously, it is a good chance to gather data in preparation for testing those methods.
Besides the marketing, political and economic benefits of the War on Freedom (aka War on Terrorism) can be gained from transfering the momentum to a War on Asteroids. The former being an internal (to Earth) conflict further holding back advancement.
In the 80's one of the U.S. based science magazines ran an adevertisement for an "all-natural pH balanced skin moisturizer" IIRC for April 1st. The next issue had to explain to too many people that it was a joke.
Another source is waste heat from air conditioners. One article a while ago pointed out that all those fscking airconditioning units radiating into the street raise urban temperatures. I think it was 3 F or 5 F.
I missed the power supply in the article, but if the power requirements are low enough it might be able to ride on other radio signals. Wasn't that a goal of Tesla, to be able to draw electricity from the air?