We haven't been doing this for long because we haven't had fast enough A/D and D/A converters, and cpu speeds to handle the digital data. A trunked system is more of a radio application than a cognitive radio.
SDR is a pretty well defined term -- can your radio do multiple waveforms (rx or tx) in software? Can it change bandwidth or channels without physically changing the filters? Can it change the modulation and adjust the attenuation without physically changing a module? Check out the SDR forum if you want more info.
I'd argue these guys have more of clue when it comes to this than you do -- they've got working hardware/software and you're just an AC.
Actually, a lot of research has been done on this very question of "playing fairly" (much of it from a market-focused point of view), with some very ingenious schemes proposed. There can certainly be objectivity to these kind of schemes -- particularly if there's money on some end of the agreement.
And for safety and emergency systems -- why should use phones and radios when the telegraph is so much more reliable and cheaper? Cognitive radios in this application space are currently being promoted as way of solving the multiple responder impasse that occurs during emergencies -- such as the Fire Department can't talk to the Federal Marshalls. The resource sharing aspect would not be implemented until the technology matures.
Well, one reason is overhead. If you need full time janitorial services, and choose to hire a contractor, you are going to pay the going rate + contractor management + contractor profit. The nice thing is, its a fixed cost that goes away as soon as you drop the contract, but (unless the company is hiring at sub-standard wages, which can be possible with illegals etc) those one-time costs can be higher than just hiring someone in-house.
Anyway, how much expertise is really needed to do janitorial work? In a small company, you can hire a single person that does the job well and independently. In a large company, hire a small division of custodial staff that self-manages themselves. It's well within the reach of most companies.
Seems most everyone has an issue with the price, and I am not one to disagree. $500 is a lot of money. But there are several things to consider here:
1) I seem to recall that there are rumours AT&T/Cingular will reduce the price on the service plan. So instead of $80/mo + free phone, we may see $30/mo + $500 phone.
2) How much is a blackberry? This seems like it can easily capture blackberry users with its integrated email functionality -- does it compete well at this pricepoint?
The one problem I see is that it won't allow 3rd party apps. This means that it can't truly be compared against a PocketPC or palm.
Yes, I've had equally disturbing applecare service. One time they repartitioned my hard drive, making it appear that my hard drive was erased. Another time they sent the machine back without even fixing it. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that apple doesn't service the powerbooks, they subcrontract it out to flextronics. Anyway, it is really ridiculous, considering that applecare is anything but cheap.
I don't think this is what the poster is referring to --
I believe the hardware used for this "on-demand" process is a DVR. Shows are "pushed" onto a seperate part of the hard drive for play back at a later date, if you pay the price. However, the show was still on tv the night before it was pushed. Does this system keep you from recording CSI when it was aired on TV? Because otherwise this seems to be a fee for someone who can't remember to set their DVR.
Despite how much I hate recent trends in this "post 9/11 America," -- I think that the difference in freedom of speech between the US and China is so immense that to compare the two by claiming the difference is rapidly decreasing is a vast overstatement.
Furthermore, economic freedom is hardly measured by tax rates. I would argue that it is still much easier in the US for an average citizen to start and run his own business than it is in China. Chinese companies are strange beasts and are really dependent on a complex web of government / private connections.
Sure, driving is a privilege and not a right. So is attending school, getting job, buying a house, travelling on an airplane, opening a bank account, starting a business, the list goes on. If I don't want the card, eventually I won't be able to do any of those.
Even if I just want a non-drivers license ID card, I'm going to have to get it from the DMV. Other than a military ID (which requires another ID to get, anyway) and a passport (same problem), there isn't anyone out there to issue you an ID other than your DMV.
Seriously, the immigration issue is a red-herring. This is will become a system that has tremendous potential for abuse with little benefit to the masses.
The article cites that one reason for the sale is the slim profits on the PC business, and gives as evidence the $100M profit IBM will make on the division this year.
I agree for IBM that in terms of outlay:return, that is probably a pretty slim profit. But the division is profitable, most of the time. Furthermore, I assume quite a few jobs are going to be lost if they sell to an asian (Chinese) producer.
So, it saddens me to see more jobs leaving the US not because the product can't compete or is unprofitable, but because it not profitable enough. Especially for IBM, where even though their business model has been changing over the last 15 years, PCs are still a sort of "core competency." It seems sort of like if GM sold its car production business to focus on its more profitable credit operations.
Anyway, I wonder what will happen when IBM outsources its "services" jobs to some companies in India or Eastern Europe.
I agree. Besides, the costs in India/China etc are lower because people are, by and large restricted to their countries of birth because of social ties and immigration laws. Thus, when a huge wage disparity exists betweens two countries for identical work, corporations can exploit this inequality for a signifigant period of time until migration and expectations in the cheaper country even out the cost.
Here in the US, people will just move to wherever the jobs are. There are no political restrictions on this, and they are still less than a 6 hour plane flight from friends and family. Rural costs will quickly adapt to metropolitan costs. Plus, this plan will probably just lead to urban sprawl, with the rural areas tapping into the largest city for labor and encouraging a slow migration of the urban areas to the new sites.
Actually, I'm a government employee, so I have more than a little bite of a clue. I was specifically refuting the previous poster's crazy conclusion:
"Face it folks: Taxes are never levied for the benefit of those taxed, and the money gained is never spent in a worthwhile way."
I think the problems you see in government are similar to those found in any industry: the disconnect between budgeting/accounting and real-worl operations creates strange purchasing cycles. The opposite end of the spectrum is not to bin any of the money to specific programs/offices, and instead let people spend it on whatever, whenever. Then you get another kind of waste and abuse, with the added problem that your officemate just spent your money for you.
So its a catch-22, and we have an imperfect system that people know how to work to their advantage.
Right, and the roads I drive on, libraries I use, schools I attend, courts that uphold our laws and the military that defends us are all completely worthless and solely for the benefit of some politician and their corporate whores.
I'm sure if we eleminated taxes and spent our windfall on more shit from Wal-Mart the invisible hand of capitalism would take care of all our problems for us.
I think you've hit the nail on the head -- Best Buy, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. have tricked America into sacrificing service and quality for percieved "low" prices.
In reality, I suspect that many of the prices we pay for things are just as much as they ever were, but we are left with urban cores dead of all retail, a sales staff that know nothing about the products they sell and -- the ultimate insult -- checking and bagging our own groceries at the supermarket!
This is what is known as assymetrical warfare, and it is the center of current US war planning efforts. The idea is to have a military so dominant that it takes very little of our resources to overwhelm the enemy. War isn't like a sports league -- you really don't want to be "evenly matched." Instead, you want one power to be way more powerful than the others.
What you hope is that side is yours, and they have the politics and doctrine to use that power as only as needed.
I subscribe to the Globe, and I find his column terrible. I don't think I have read a single article of his and felt that I was getting a technology news story -- it always reads like an op-ed from the RIAA, MPAA or some other corporate interest. Furthermore, Hiawatha has shown himself to be clueless to the world of technology, his "review" little more than rewrites of the PR department releases. Check out some of his other stuff:
I've got an old PS/2 80 gathering a lot of dust that came with a great keyboard. I seem to remeber that if you tried to use another keyboard with it the computer would refuse to boot or something. It was IBM's way of enforcing that you buy their hardware.
You have a good point, but the counter-argument is that the corporate interest _is_ the public interest -- if corporations don't have an environment conducive to business and profit, the economic engine of the country becomes weakened. This ultimately leads to a loss of jobs across society.
Sure, I find it hard to believe that it is impossible or even difficult to make a profit without these software patents laws, but this is the logic that is used to make decisions such as these and cast them as being in the public interest.
I agree. The whole concept is exactly what Harvey Mudd set out to accomplish in 1955.
The mission of HMC ("Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians well versed in all these areas and in the humanities and social sciences so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society.") seems the same, as well as the class size (~650), and naming convention (moniker taken from rich donor). The biggest difference seems to be the price. And the fact this school has yet to form a reputation for excellence.
Actually, at the beginning of the episode when he was talking to Krychek (sp?), I thought I knew how CC was going to end/explain the series. Perhaps it was all going to be in Mulder's head, a huge schizophrenic nightmare (much like A Beautiful Mind).
But it couldn't have been manifestations of his doubts, because they provided new, unknown information (a witness's address, for instance). So what the hell was with the communication with the dead?
Unfortunately, when one brings God into the context of an argument, there is no real counter-argument. One of the neat things about God is that he all-powerful and omnipotent, therefore anything is possible, including having human genes that are similar to other organisms.
With God, since we are not privy to his master plan, nothing "doesn't make sense." Of course it makes sense, it just isn't what you were expecting. So this argument of creationism versus evolution boils down to something ephemeral frustrating for scientists - faith. It is impossible to argue with faith, so don't try.
The article was really about some PhD who wants a headline and knows the easiest way grab it is to piss off a large group of people with a black and white statement -- "Darwin Vindicated, Creationism is Dead!" Instead, his headline should be "Genome Mapping Consistant with Previous Scientific Thought" because that is all the new evidence provides.
Society responds most strongly to changes to the current paradigm. Recording of TV shows with a VCR is not only common and accepted, it is widely used by a vast cross section of society. To take away this option will definitely fuel debate on at least this scenario. I suspect that even ignorant politicians will be able to grasp the implications of not being able to record must-see-tv, and will move to preserve the right of time-shifting.
Perhaps the FTC will apply pressure to the broadcast networks, as they are effectively the beneficiaries of a large public gift of broadcasting bandwidth, and therefore have an obligation to work for the public interest. At least it would seem that some executives will realize that watching time shifted tv allows more people to tune in their programs and developes greater viewer followership.
I completely agree. Everyone is getting so excited about this agreement, but I question why Bertelsmann needs Napster. What they need is SDMI-like technology. Napster's technology is peer-to-peer file sharing -- something conspiciously absent from every guess of the what their future business model might be.
I don't even see how the napster user base will help them, since in affect, this new plan is as different from the current napster as bikes are to cars -- both are modes of transportation (music distribution), but work under completely different paradigms. People who like napster for the find-any-music-you-want aspect, won't have this under the agreement. People who like napster for the free music aspect, won't have that. Only people who like the pure convenience of mp3's will find overlap between the new and old services.
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We haven't been doing this for long because we haven't had fast enough A/D and D/A converters, and cpu speeds to handle the digital data. A trunked system is more of a radio application than a cognitive radio.
SDR is a pretty well defined term -- can your radio do multiple waveforms (rx or tx) in software? Can it change bandwidth or channels without physically changing the filters? Can it change the modulation and adjust the attenuation without physically changing a module? Check out the SDR forum if you want more info.
I'd argue these guys have more of clue when it comes to this than you do -- they've got working hardware/software and you're just an AC.
Actually, a lot of research has been done on this very question of "playing fairly" (much of it from a market-focused point of view), with some very ingenious schemes proposed. There can certainly be objectivity to these kind of schemes -- particularly if there's money on some end of the agreement.
And for safety and emergency systems -- why should use phones and radios when the telegraph is so much more reliable and cheaper? Cognitive radios in this application space are currently being promoted as way of solving the multiple responder impasse that occurs during emergencies -- such as the Fire Department can't talk to the Federal Marshalls. The resource sharing aspect would not be implemented until the technology matures.
Well, one reason is overhead. If you need full time janitorial services, and choose to hire a contractor, you are going to pay the going rate + contractor management + contractor profit. The nice thing is, its a fixed cost that goes away as soon as you drop the contract, but (unless the company is hiring at sub-standard wages, which can be possible with illegals etc) those one-time costs can be higher than just hiring someone in-house.
Anyway, how much expertise is really needed to do janitorial work? In a small company, you can hire a single person that does the job well and independently. In a large company, hire a small division of custodial staff that self-manages themselves. It's well within the reach of most companies.
Seems most everyone has an issue with the price, and I am not one to disagree. $500 is a lot of money. But there are several things to consider here:
1) I seem to recall that there are rumours AT&T/Cingular will reduce the price on the service plan. So instead of $80/mo + free phone, we may see $30/mo + $500 phone.
2) How much is a blackberry? This seems like it can easily capture blackberry users with its integrated email functionality -- does it compete well at this pricepoint?
The one problem I see is that it won't allow 3rd party apps. This means that it can't truly be compared against a PocketPC or palm.
So, the cost of bringing piracy to justice is greater than the losses incurred by said piracy?
Unreal.
Yes, I've had equally disturbing applecare service. One time they repartitioned my hard drive, making it appear that my hard drive was erased. Another time they sent the machine back without even fixing it. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that apple doesn't service the powerbooks, they subcrontract it out to flextronics. Anyway, it is really ridiculous, considering that applecare is anything but cheap.
I don't think this is what the poster is referring to --
I believe the hardware used for this "on-demand" process is a DVR. Shows are "pushed" onto a seperate part of the hard drive for play back at a later date, if you pay the price. However, the show was still on tv the night before it was pushed. Does this system keep you from recording CSI when it was aired on TV? Because otherwise this seems to be a fee for someone who can't remember to set their DVR.
Hey, that's where I am now. That would be an awesome service -- do you know why they discontinued it?
Despite how much I hate recent trends in this "post 9/11 America," -- I think that the difference in freedom of speech between the US and China is so immense that to compare the two by claiming the difference is rapidly decreasing is a vast overstatement.
Furthermore, economic freedom is hardly measured by tax rates. I would argue that it is still much easier in the US for an average citizen to start and run his own business than it is in China. Chinese companies are strange beasts and are really dependent on a complex web of government / private connections.
Sure, driving is a privilege and not a right. So is attending school, getting job, buying a house, travelling on an airplane, opening a bank account, starting a business, the list goes on. If I don't want the card, eventually I won't be able to do any of those.
Even if I just want a non-drivers license ID card, I'm going to have to get it from the DMV. Other than a military ID (which requires another ID to get, anyway) and a passport (same problem), there isn't anyone out there to issue you an ID other than your DMV.
Seriously, the immigration issue is a red-herring. This is will become a system that has tremendous potential for abuse with little benefit to the masses.
The article cites that one reason for the sale is the slim profits on the PC business, and gives as evidence the $100M profit IBM will make on the division this year.
I agree for IBM that in terms of outlay:return, that is probably a pretty slim profit. But the division is profitable, most of the time. Furthermore, I assume quite a few jobs are going to be lost if they sell to an asian (Chinese) producer.
So, it saddens me to see more jobs leaving the US not because the product can't compete or is unprofitable, but because it not profitable enough. Especially for IBM, where even though their business model has been changing over the last 15 years, PCs are still a sort of "core competency." It seems sort of like if GM sold its car production business to focus on its more profitable credit operations.
Anyway, I wonder what will happen when IBM outsources its "services" jobs to some companies in India or Eastern Europe.
I agree. Besides, the costs in India/China etc are lower because people are, by and large restricted to their countries of birth because of social ties and immigration laws. Thus, when a huge wage disparity exists betweens two countries for identical work, corporations can exploit this inequality for a signifigant period of time until migration and expectations in the cheaper country even out the cost.
Here in the US, people will just move to wherever the jobs are. There are no political restrictions on this, and they are still less than a 6 hour plane flight from friends and family. Rural costs will quickly adapt to metropolitan costs. Plus, this plan will probably just lead to urban sprawl, with the rural areas tapping into the largest city for labor and encouraging a slow migration of the urban areas to the new sites.
Actually, I'm a government employee, so I have more than a little bite of a clue. I was specifically refuting the previous poster's crazy conclusion:
"Face it folks: Taxes are never levied for the benefit of those taxed, and the money gained is never spent in a worthwhile way."
I think the problems you see in government are similar to those found in any industry: the disconnect between budgeting/accounting and real-worl operations creates strange purchasing cycles. The opposite end of the spectrum is not to bin any of the money to specific programs/offices, and instead let people spend it on whatever, whenever. Then you get another kind of waste and abuse, with the added problem that your officemate just spent your money for you.
So its a catch-22, and we have an imperfect system that people know how to work to their advantage.
Right, and the roads I drive on, libraries I use, schools I attend, courts that uphold our laws and the military that defends us are all completely worthless and solely for the benefit of some politician and their corporate whores.
I'm sure if we eleminated taxes and spent our windfall on more shit from Wal-Mart the invisible hand of capitalism would take care of all our problems for us.
I think you've hit the nail on the head -- Best Buy, Walmart, Home Depot, etc. have tricked America into sacrificing service and quality for percieved "low" prices.
In reality, I suspect that many of the prices we pay for things are just as much as they ever were, but we are left with urban cores dead of all retail, a sales staff that know nothing about the products they sell and -- the ultimate insult -- checking and bagging our own groceries at the supermarket!
This is what is known as assymetrical warfare, and it is the center of current US war planning efforts. The idea is to have a military so dominant that it takes very little of our resources to overwhelm the enemy. War isn't like a sports league -- you really don't want to be "evenly matched." Instead, you want one power to be way more powerful than the others.
What you hope is that side is yours, and they have the politics and doctrine to use that power as only as needed.
I subscribe to the Globe, and I find his column terrible. I don't think I have read a single article of his and felt that I was getting a technology news story -- it always reads like an op-ed from the RIAA, MPAA or some other corporate interest. Furthermore, Hiawatha has shown himself to be clueless to the world of technology, his "review" little more than rewrites of the PR department releases. Check out some of his other stuff:
http://www.boston.com/business/technology/bray/
I've got an old PS/2 80 gathering a lot of dust that came with a great keyboard. I seem to remeber that if you tried to use another keyboard with it the computer would refuse to boot or something. It was IBM's way of enforcing that you buy their hardware.
Does anybody remember this / know how it worked?
You have a good point, but the counter-argument is that the corporate interest _is_ the public interest -- if corporations don't have an environment conducive to business and profit, the economic engine of the country becomes weakened. This ultimately leads to a loss of jobs across society.
Sure, I find it hard to believe that it is impossible or even difficult to make a profit without these software patents laws, but this is the logic that is used to make decisions such as these and cast them as being in the public interest.
I agree. The whole concept is exactly what Harvey Mudd set out to accomplish in 1955.
The mission of HMC ("Harvey Mudd College seeks to educate engineers, scientists, and mathematicians well versed in all these areas and in the humanities and social sciences so that they may assume leadership in their fields with a clear understanding of the impact of their work on society.") seems the same, as well as the class size (~650), and naming convention (moniker taken from rich donor). The biggest difference seems to be the price. And the fact this school has yet to form a reputation for excellence.
Actually, at the beginning of the episode when he was talking to Krychek (sp?), I thought I knew how CC was going to end/explain the series. Perhaps it was all going to be in Mulder's head, a huge schizophrenic nightmare (much like A Beautiful Mind).
But it couldn't have been manifestations of his doubts, because they provided new, unknown information (a witness's address, for instance). So what the hell was with the communication with the dead?
Unfortunately, when one brings God into the context of an argument, there is no real counter-argument. One of the neat things about God is that he all-powerful and omnipotent, therefore anything is possible, including having human genes that are similar to other organisms.
With God, since we are not privy to his master plan, nothing "doesn't make sense." Of course it makes sense, it just isn't what you were expecting. So this argument of creationism versus evolution boils down to something ephemeral frustrating for scientists - faith. It is impossible to argue with faith, so don't try.
The article was really about some PhD who wants a headline and knows the easiest way grab it is to piss off a large group of people with a black and white statement -- "Darwin Vindicated, Creationism is Dead!" Instead, his headline should be "Genome Mapping Consistant with Previous Scientific Thought" because that is all the new evidence provides.
Society responds most strongly to changes to the current paradigm. Recording of TV shows with a VCR is not only common and accepted, it is widely used by a vast cross section of society. To take away this option will definitely fuel debate on at least this scenario. I suspect that even ignorant politicians will be able to grasp the implications of not being able to record must-see-tv, and will move to preserve the right of time-shifting.
Perhaps the FTC will apply pressure to the broadcast networks, as they are effectively the beneficiaries of a large public gift of broadcasting bandwidth, and therefore have an obligation to work for the public interest. At least it would seem that some executives will realize that watching time shifted tv allows more people to tune in their programs and developes greater viewer followership.
I completely agree. Everyone is getting so excited about this agreement, but I question why Bertelsmann needs Napster. What they need is SDMI-like technology. Napster's technology is peer-to-peer file sharing -- something conspiciously absent from every guess of the what their future business model might be. I don't even see how the napster user base will help them, since in affect, this new plan is as different from the current napster as bikes are to cars -- both are modes of transportation (music distribution), but work under completely different paradigms. People who like napster for the find-any-music-you-want aspect, won't have this under the agreement. People who like napster for the free music aspect, won't have that. Only people who like the pure convenience of mp3's will find overlap between the new and old services.