I'll argue that Google serves advertisers better than Lycos ever did, by having better targetting to audiences, easier to purchase small amounts of advertising, etc.
Price Discrimination is fairly common in almost all industries. But it is extremely common in industries where there are large initial capital requirements in R&D, compared to the marginal cost of production (such as microprocessors, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals).
Before 200 years ago or so, price discrimination was standard operating procedure, as most products were haggled for. The seller would haggle to determine the highest price the buyer is willing to pay.
The industrial revolution, telecommunications advances, and the rise of the catalog store (such as Sears) made it less advantageous to haggle with every customer, and the standard price became popular. Imagine haggling with your checkout clerk at the local grocery store.
But price discrimination never went away. "Price skimming," charging higher prices to early adopters, is standard with consumer electronics. Brand and off-branding is another means of price discrimination, as is pricing by region or country.
SpaceShipOne is a test design to get cost data for actual sub-orbital tourism.
From Scaled Composites: "How much will it cost to get a ride into space? Rides will not be offered in SpaceShipOne. The price of a ride will have to take in consideration the cost of certification and establishing an airliner-like operation. One goal of this research program is to see how low it might be without the burden of regulatory costs. At program completion we will have good data for operational costs and may publish them."
From 1944-1972, Hanford released 740 kcuries of iodine-131, 200 kcuries of tritium, 19 Mcuries of krypton-85, 420 Mcuries of xenon-133, and many other radionuclides into the air, most during non-filtered or periods of early filters from 1944-1950. The biggest health risk is probably the iodine-131, rather than the noble gasses xenon and krypton. The iodine exposure was from contaminated milk, eating contaminated fruits and vegetables, and breathing contaminated air. Iodine is bio-concentrated in the thyroid gland, which can lead to tumors there.
Tritium was released mainly in 1949 through 1954. Also early on, a lot of particles of ruthenium radionuclides and plutonium were released.
Releases from cooling water and flushes of the reactors at Hanford (for creating plutonium for weapons) lead to water-borne exposure from zinc-65, arsenic-76, phosphorus-32, sodium-24 and neptunium-239. Eating fish and shellfish was the main way people were exposed to radiation from Hanford's reactors.
60 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from the chemical separations plants are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford. The tanks contain about 200 million curies of radioactivity. Over the years, more than 1 million gallons, containing over 100 kcuries of radioactivity, have leaked into the soil. At present, it is uncertain whether any of this waste has reached the groundwater.
Tritium is the most commonly found radionuclide in the groundwater at Hanford. Ruthenium-106, technetium-99 and iodine-129 are three of the other radioactive materials commonly found in Hanford's groundwater.
The separations plants required large amounts of water to process plutonium and this water became contaminated inside the plants. Hanford has estimated that over 440 billion gallons of these radioactive wastes were dumped into the ground.
Hanford also buried solid wastes in the soil. This waste contains nearly 5 million curies of radioactivity.
Most of the primary investigators are probably US citizens, despite having funny names.
Their graduate students might be non-citizens, but patents on work done by them in research positions for US universities are generally assigned to the university.
Regarding entry-level R&D positions, here are some off HotJobs...
Entry Level Engineer/Test Tech Adecco Technical Manassas, VA Entry-Level Structural Engineer M.G. McLaren, P.C. Consulting Engineers Orlando, FL Entry Level Software Engineer (GUI Development) Ascential Software Westboro, MA Entry Level Mechanical Engineer Time Services Findlay, OH Entry-level, Firmware Engineer (41141) Symbol Technologies, Inc. San Jose, CA Engineering Technician-Entry Level Alliance Medical Corp Phoenix, AZ Entry Level Software Engineer RedRadio San Juan Capistrano, CA Process Engineer (Entry Level) Lam Research Fremont, CA Entry Level Civil Engineer Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. Bedford, NH Engineer Trainee Adecco Fontana, CA Data Stream Engineer Comscore Networks Reston, VA.NET ENGINEER Hansen Information Technologies Sacramento, CA Entry Level Java Developer Model N, Inc. South San Francisco, CA; ENTRY-LEVEL ELECTRICAL ENG. Jet Propulsion Laboratories Pasadena, CA; Los Angeles, CA Civil Engineering Junior Engineer/Assistant Engineer The Keith Companies Irvine, CA; Palm Desert, CA; Encino, CA; San Diego, CA Software Engineer 1 (Raleigh, NC) Acterna Raleigh, NC BIOPHARMACEUTICAL OPERATOR I Enzon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Bridgewater, NJ
Entry Level Researchers Reis, Inc. New York, NY
Research Associate Diagnostic Products Corp. Los Angeles, CA
Public Release: 23-Jul-2004 Unlocking the secrets of titanium, a 'key' that assists hydrogen storage Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the New Jersey Institute of Technology have taken steps toward understanding how a titanium catalyzes the release and re-absorption of hydrogen. Their results may help scientists learn how similar catalysts work, improve their performance, and possibly develop more efficient storage materials for hydrogen fuel cells.
Brookhaven's Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program, National Science Foundation
Public Release: 23-Jul-2004 Optical breast cancer detector A light-sensitive probe is being developed to help doctors spot breast cancer in some of the 70,000 American women each year whose malignancies fail to show up in needle biopsies. The Whitaker Foundation, Arlington, VA
Public Release: 23-Jul-2004
Nature Yale scientists visualize details of how hepatitis C unwinds RNA Research led by Anna Marie Pyle, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale reveals how a protein from hepatitis C (HCV) unwinds RNA, potentially allowing the virus to be copied. Their findings are particularly important because RNA helicase NS3 is a major drug target against HCV and understanding the helicase function will aid in development of HCV inhibitors.
National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Public Release: 22-Jul-2004 'Cool' fuel cells could revolutionize Earth's energy resources Researchers at the University of Houston are striving toward decreasing electric bills with a breakthrough in thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) that is currently being refined in UH labs. Originating from research at UH's Texas Center for Superconductivity and Advanced Materials, these SOFCs of the "thin film" variety are both efficient and compact and could make cumbersome power plants virtually obsolete.
Public Release: 22-Jul-2004
Diabetes New gene associated with type 1 diabetes A new gene mutation identified by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston is part of the constellation of genes associated with susceptibility to developing type 1 diabetes. It could also play a role in the devastating complications of diabetes such as kidney failure.
Public Release: 22-Jul-2004
Applied Physics Letters Breakthrough yields simple way to make microscopic electronics In a breakthrough that could lead to dramatically smaller memory chips and other electronic components, Princeton scientists have found a way to mass produce devices that are so small they are at the limit of what can be viewed by the most powerful microscopes.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Princeton University
Public Release: 22-Jul-2004
Physiological Genomics Microarrays, key genome expression trackers, work better when probes are sequence-verified Harvard researchers found that up to 20% of biochip probes don't perfectly match the appropriate mRNA as defined by the RefSeq. By sequence-verifying probes they showed increased accuracy between technical replicates, across same-platform generations, across different technologies and when comparing patient-oriented data from independent diagnostic array studies.
Public Release: 21-Jul-2004
Nature Quantum computing, secure communication closer Quantum computing, which holds the promise of nearly unlimited processing power, secure communications, and the ability to decode encrypted conversations by terrorists, is a significant step closer to becoming a reality with new research published July 22 by UCLA scientists in the journal Nature. The UCLA team succeeded in flipping a single electron spin upside down in an ordinary commercial transistor chip, and detected that the current changes when the electron flips.
Public release date: 21-Jul-2004
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---James Bond-style technologies such as cell phones
Optical SETI makes a lot more sense than radio SETI. Transmission and reception are more directional, as well there being much less terrestrial impulse noise in optical versus radio to increase reception SNR.
The problem is that even our most powerful radio emmissions today are not capable of being received with our technology today more than a light-year away.
And when I say "most powerful radio emmissions," I mean highly-focused radio beams from large dishes like Arecibo or over-the-horizon military search radar. The non-directional radio buzz from PCs, microwave ovens, cellphones, etc. are nothing in comparison.
Radio reception SETI assumes ETI have radio transmission devices more powerful than any we have today by several orders of magnitude.
Optical SETI dramatically reduces the amount of power required to be detected over the same distance by allowing more directional transmission. Also I we can achieve optical pulses of much higher power than we can with radio pulses.
The challenge here is that higher power through directionality means a smaller search window at any point. It is a power/time tradeoff.
I don't feel like I have access to a smaller or less rich range of media viewpoints now than I did 20 years ago.
20 years ago, I did not have access to 100 different cable/DBS channels, 10-100 million different web sites, and hundreds of channels of satellite radio.
If I want to hear right-wing biased news, I can turn on Fox News. If I want to hear left-wing biased news, I can watch CNN. If I want to hear news with an economic centric viewpoint, I can watch MSNBC. And there is PBS.
Locality is also improved, as I can watch a 24-hour local news channel on cable.
At a technical conference earlier this year, I noticed something going between a few machines that looked a lot like a wireless virus, but was unable to capture it properly (they weren't my machines, I was just trying to shut down rouge APs).
The trick is being able to turn a normal laptop into an access point, then spreading the virus to other machines as they "automagically" try to connect to whatever AP they can find. Then those infected computers turn into APs, etc.
1) Audio is more important than video. Use professional mics, preferably boom-mounted if possible, or pro lavs that take phantom power and have XLR connectors. As a result, you really should get a camera that has XLR mic connectors with phantom power.
2) I have yet to see a DV camera with a better image than the Panasonic AG DP-800 S-VHS "SUPERCAM" which you can now get on Ebay for about $1000. The issue is that the imaging circuitry and lenses on all the prosumer cameras are far below broadcast quality. It isn't a matter of resolution or gain, it is a matter of looking "good", particularly people's skin. Of course this S-VHS camera does not record to digital tape so you need to do an A/D conversion to capture it on an NLE, but you know what, it will still look better than an XL-1 image!
3) Or ignore what I said, get a little single CCD DV camera you can hold in your hand, and go wild shooting, and have fun. That is how you will actually learn.
Have you actually tried this? It is mainly urban rumor. Bullets and shells that detonate outside of a gun chamber go "pop" mainly from the primer but don't deliver a bullet with any real force.
At 5,000 feet, air-to-gound line of sight is 100 miles, aircraft-to-aircraft line of sight is 200 miles. Most urban areas will probably have at least one aircraft within 100 miles at any point!
As proof-of-concept, listen to VHF air frequencies, you will hear 20-30 planes over a few minutes.
I have worked space station MIR with a 5 watt handheld VHF transmitter, which is about 100 miles away.
My impression is that if all commercial airline planes carried mesh network devices that could emit a few watts, urban areas could probably have near 100% mobile digital coverage, the question being just how much bandwidth would be available, which would be a cost/benefit ratio based on how complex the devices in the planes need to be.
There have been several orbiting digipeaters using VHF & UHF AX.25 amateur packet radio (including a payload I was involved with, SPRE). TCP/IP is possible over AX.25
Not to mention Wide Angle which just did shows about corruption and murder that keeps the free Russian press down and inside the minds of suicide bombers, and Frontline World which has recently done shows on the capitalist revolution in China and tracing the paths Mexican migrants take into the US that often end up deadly.
The discussion of the use of atomic weapons in Japan can not really ignore the issue of the USSR, its potential entry into the war, and the possibility of part of Japan ending up as a communist dictatorship.
7/17/45 Diary Entry: "He'll [Stalin and Russia] be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about."
7/18/45 Letter to Bess Truman: "...I've gotten what I came for - Stalin goes to war [against Japan] August 15 with no strings on it. He wanted a Chinese settlement [in return for entering the Pacific war, China would give Russia some land and other concessions] - and it is practically made - in a better form than I expected. [Chinese Foreign Minister] Soong did better than I asked him. I'll say that we'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed! That is the important thing."
7/18/45 Diary Entry:
"P.M. [Prime Minister Winston Churchill] & I ate alone. Discussed Manhattan [atomic bomb] (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in. I am sure they will when Manhattan appears over their homeland. I shall inform Stalin about it at an opportune time."
7/25/45 Diary Entry:
"The weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old capital or the new [Kyoto or Tokyo]."
7/25/45 Diary Entry: "He [Stimson] and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement [known as the Potsdam Proclamation] asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful."
7/31/45 Letter to Bess Truman: "He [Stalin] doesn't know it but I have an ace in the hole and another one showing - so unless he has threes or two pair (and I know he has not) we are sitting all right." [A possible reference to the atomic bomb, possessed at the time by the U.S. but not by Russia.]
And- furthermore-, rural Indian farmers don't need goddamn "ruggedized" linux-flavored PDAs. Clothe them. Get them running water. Get them something resembling health care.
Computer technology helps largely illiterate Indian dairy farmers to more effectively get their milk to market and buyers before it sours in the heat.
Computers are also being used to track Indian cows in a village to allow for better animal husbandry to increase milk production.
These things raise dairy farmer income, so they can afford the above things you mention.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple answer, use C#/.NET with managed code. No more buffer overflows.
I don't get this. I've got a smallish house, but need two APs to cover it. I guess I'm considerably less directional, but still?!
You need to think of radio like light (albeit light that can go through non-metallic objects a bit). Your APs put out under 1 watt, like a candle.
These guys who went 50 miles were using the equivalent of a large telescope, viewing a star that is too dim to be seen by the naked eye.
I'll argue that Google serves advertisers better than Lycos ever did, by having better targetting to audiences, easier to purchase small amounts of advertising, etc.
The problem is that printers are 1) expensive and 2) break down quickly. Instead of"hanging chad," you'd have "worn-out printer ribbon".
If everyone could afford to go to existincing mechanical counter style machines, that would be an excellent way to go.
But expense and maintenance is a major problem when you have tens of millions of machines.
Paper ballots of any kind are also not a perfect solution. Often individual paper ballots "escape" through box failure.
Price Discrimination is fairly common in almost all industries. But it is extremely common in industries where there are large initial capital requirements in R&D, compared to the marginal cost of production (such as microprocessors, automobiles, and pharmaceuticals).
Before 200 years ago or so, price discrimination was standard operating procedure, as most products were haggled for. The seller would haggle to determine the highest price the buyer is willing to pay.
The industrial revolution, telecommunications advances, and the rise of the catalog store (such as Sears) made it less advantageous to haggle with every customer, and the standard price became popular. Imagine haggling with your checkout clerk at the local grocery store.
But price discrimination never went away. "Price skimming," charging higher prices to early adopters, is standard with consumer electronics. Brand and off-branding is another means of price discrimination, as is pricing by region or country.
SpaceShipOne is a test design to get cost data for actual sub-orbital tourism.
From Scaled Composites: "How much will it cost to get a ride into space? Rides will not be offered in SpaceShipOne. The price of a ride will have to take in consideration the cost of certification and establishing an airliner-like operation. One goal of this research program is to see how low it might be without the burden of regulatory costs. At program completion we will have good data for operational costs and may publish them."
Overview of Handford radioactive pollution issues
Summarizing...
From 1944-1972, Hanford released 740 kcuries of iodine-131, 200 kcuries of tritium, 19 Mcuries of krypton-85, 420 Mcuries of xenon-133, and many other radionuclides into the air, most during non-filtered or periods of early filters from 1944-1950. The biggest health risk is probably the iodine-131, rather than the noble gasses xenon and krypton. The iodine exposure was from contaminated milk, eating contaminated fruits and vegetables, and breathing contaminated air. Iodine is bio-concentrated in the thyroid gland, which can lead to tumors there.
Tritium was released mainly in 1949 through 1954. Also early on, a lot of particles of ruthenium radionuclides and plutonium were released.
Releases from cooling water and flushes of the reactors at Hanford (for creating plutonium for weapons) lead to water-borne exposure from zinc-65, arsenic-76, phosphorus-32, sodium-24 and neptunium-239. Eating fish and shellfish was the main way people were exposed to radiation from Hanford's reactors.
60 million gallons of highly radioactive waste from the chemical separations plants are stored in 177 underground tanks at Hanford. The tanks contain about 200 million curies of radioactivity. Over the years, more than 1 million gallons, containing over 100 kcuries of radioactivity, have leaked into the soil. At present, it is uncertain whether any of this waste has reached the groundwater.
Tritium is the most commonly found radionuclide in the groundwater at Hanford. Ruthenium-106, technetium-99 and iodine-129 are three of the other radioactive materials commonly found in Hanford's groundwater.
The separations plants required large amounts of water to process plutonium and this water became contaminated inside the plants. Hanford has estimated that over 440 billion gallons of these radioactive wastes were dumped into the ground.
Hanford also buried solid wastes in the soil. This waste contains nearly 5 million curies of radioactivity.
Most of the primary investigators are probably US citizens, despite having funny names.
.NET ENGINEER Hansen Information Technologies Sacramento, CA
Their graduate students might be non-citizens, but patents on work done by them in research positions for US universities are generally assigned to the university.
Regarding entry-level R&D positions, here are some off HotJobs...
Entry Level Engineer/Test Tech Adecco Technical Manassas, VA
Entry-Level Structural Engineer M.G. McLaren, P.C. Consulting Engineers Orlando, FL
Entry Level Software Engineer (GUI Development) Ascential Software Westboro, MA
Entry Level Mechanical Engineer Time Services Findlay, OH
Entry-level, Firmware Engineer (41141) Symbol Technologies, Inc. San Jose, CA
Engineering Technician-Entry Level Alliance Medical Corp Phoenix, AZ
Entry Level Software Engineer RedRadio San Juan Capistrano, CA
Process Engineer (Entry Level) Lam Research Fremont, CA
Entry Level Civil Engineer Vanasse Hangen Brustlin, Inc. Bedford, NH
Engineer Trainee Adecco Fontana, CA
Data Stream Engineer Comscore Networks Reston, VA
Entry Level Java Developer Model N, Inc. South San Francisco, CA;
ENTRY-LEVEL ELECTRICAL ENG. Jet Propulsion Laboratories Pasadena, CA; Los Angeles, CA
Civil Engineering Junior Engineer/Assistant Engineer The Keith Companies Irvine, CA; Palm Desert, CA; Encino, CA; San Diego, CA
Software Engineer 1 (Raleigh, NC) Acterna Raleigh, NC
BIOPHARMACEUTICAL OPERATOR I Enzon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Bridgewater, NJ
Entry Level Researchers Reis, Inc. New York, NY
Research Associate Diagnostic Products Corp. Los Angeles, CA
Associate Scientist/Plant Biology/Genetics Adecco Technical Dennison, MN
we don't have a premier R&D system anymore
Public Release: 23-Jul-2004
Unlocking the secrets of titanium, a 'key' that assists hydrogen storage
Scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory and the New Jersey Institute of Technology have taken steps toward understanding how a titanium catalyzes the release and re-absorption of hydrogen. Their results may help scientists learn how similar catalysts work, improve their performance, and possibly develop more efficient storage materials for hydrogen fuel cells.
Brookhaven's Laboratory Directed Research and Development Program, National Science Foundation
Public Release: 23-Jul-2004
Optical breast cancer detector
A light-sensitive probe is being developed to help doctors spot breast cancer in some of the 70,000 American women each year whose malignancies fail to show up in needle biopsies.
The Whitaker Foundation, Arlington, VA
Public Release: 23-Jul-2004
Nature
Yale scientists visualize details of how hepatitis C unwinds RNA
Research led by Anna Marie Pyle, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale reveals how a protein from hepatitis C (HCV) unwinds RNA, potentially allowing the virus to be copied. Their findings are particularly important because RNA helicase NS3 is a major drug target against HCV and understanding the helicase function will aid in development of HCV inhibitors.
National Institutes of Health, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Public Release: 22-Jul-2004
'Cool' fuel cells could revolutionize Earth's energy resources
Researchers at the University of Houston are striving toward decreasing electric bills with a breakthrough in thin film solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) that is currently being refined in UH labs. Originating from research at UH's Texas Center for Superconductivity and Advanced Materials, these SOFCs of the "thin film" variety are both efficient and compact and could make cumbersome power plants virtually obsolete.
Public Release: 22-Jul-2004
Diabetes
New gene associated with type 1 diabetes
A new gene mutation identified by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM) in Houston is part of the constellation of genes associated with susceptibility to developing type 1 diabetes. It could also play a role in the devastating complications of diabetes such as kidney failure.
Public Release: 22-Jul-2004
Applied Physics Letters
Breakthrough yields simple way to make microscopic electronics
In a breakthrough that could lead to dramatically smaller memory chips and other electronic components, Princeton scientists have found a way to mass produce devices that are so small they are at the limit of what can be viewed by the most powerful microscopes.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency,
Princeton University
Public Release: 22-Jul-2004
Physiological Genomics
Microarrays, key genome expression trackers, work better when probes are sequence-verified
Harvard researchers found that up to 20% of biochip probes don't perfectly match the appropriate mRNA as defined by the RefSeq. By sequence-verifying probes they showed increased accuracy between technical replicates, across same-platform generations, across different technologies and when comparing patient-oriented data from independent diagnostic array studies.
Public Release: 21-Jul-2004
Nature
Quantum computing, secure communication closer
Quantum computing, which holds the promise of nearly unlimited processing power, secure communications, and the ability to decode encrypted conversations by terrorists, is a significant step closer to becoming a reality with new research published July 22 by UCLA scientists in the journal Nature. The UCLA team succeeded in flipping a single electron spin upside down in an ordinary commercial transistor chip, and detected that the current changes when the electron flips.
Public release date: 21-Jul-2004
ANN ARBOR, Mich.---James Bond-style technologies such as cell phones
Optical SETI makes a lot more sense than radio SETI. Transmission and reception are more directional, as well there being much less terrestrial impulse noise in optical versus radio to increase reception SNR.
The problem is that even our most powerful radio emmissions today are not capable of being received with our technology today more than a light-year away.
And when I say "most powerful radio emmissions," I mean highly-focused radio beams from large dishes like Arecibo or over-the-horizon military search radar. The non-directional radio buzz from PCs, microwave ovens, cellphones, etc. are nothing in comparison.
Radio reception SETI assumes ETI have radio transmission devices more powerful than any we have today by several orders of magnitude.
Optical SETI dramatically reduces the amount of power required to be detected over the same distance by allowing more directional transmission. Also I we can achieve optical pulses of much higher power than we can with radio pulses.
The challenge here is that higher power through directionality means a smaller search window at any point. It is a power/time tradeoff.
I don't feel like I have access to a smaller or less rich range of media viewpoints now than I did 20 years ago.
20 years ago, I did not have access to 100 different cable/DBS channels, 10-100 million different web sites, and hundreds of channels of satellite radio.
If I want to hear right-wing biased news, I can turn on Fox News. If I want to hear left-wing biased news, I can watch CNN. If I want to hear news with an economic centric viewpoint, I can watch MSNBC. And there is PBS.
Locality is also improved, as I can watch a 24-hour local news channel on cable.
Did I mention HDTV?
At a technical conference earlier this year, I noticed something going between a few machines that looked a lot like a wireless virus, but was unable to capture it properly (they weren't my machines, I was just trying to shut down rouge APs).
The trick is being able to turn a normal laptop into an access point, then spreading the virus to other machines as they "automagically" try to connect to whatever AP they can find. Then those infected computers turn into APs, etc.
Michael Badnarik Blog, he is the Libertarian Party presidential candidate. He uses b2evolution, a free GPLed blogging system.
The Badnarik campaign has also been reaching out to voters through Friendster.
1) Audio is more important than video. Use professional mics, preferably boom-mounted if possible, or pro lavs that take phantom power and have XLR connectors. As a result, you really should get a camera that has XLR mic connectors with phantom power.
2) I have yet to see a DV camera with a better image than the Panasonic AG DP-800 S-VHS "SUPERCAM" which you can now get on Ebay for about $1000. The issue is that the imaging circuitry and lenses on all the prosumer cameras are far below broadcast quality. It isn't a matter of resolution or gain, it is a matter of looking "good", particularly people's skin. Of course this S-VHS camera does not record to digital tape so you need to do an A/D conversion to capture it on an NLE, but you know what, it will still look better than an XL-1 image!
3) Or ignore what I said, get a little single CCD DV camera you can hold in your hand, and go wild shooting, and have fun. That is how you will actually learn.
I wish someone would port Zope from Python to C# Mono/.Net. That would rock my world.
Have you actually tried this? It is mainly urban rumor. Bullets and shells that detonate outside of a gun chamber go "pop" mainly from the primer but don't deliver a bullet with any real force.
Here are three Canadian tech companies that produce products I use at work everyday: Miranda, International Datacasting, Broadview Software. Nice to have NAFTA and not have to pay tarrifs!
At 5,000 feet, air-to-gound line of sight is 100 miles, aircraft-to-aircraft line of sight is 200 miles. Most urban areas will probably have at least one aircraft within 100 miles at any point!
As proof-of-concept, listen to VHF air frequencies, you will hear 20-30 planes over a few minutes.
I have worked space station MIR with a 5 watt handheld VHF transmitter, which is about 100 miles away.
My impression is that if all commercial airline planes carried mesh network devices that could emit a few watts, urban areas could probably have near 100% mobile digital coverage, the question being just how much bandwidth would be available, which would be a cost/benefit ratio based on how complex the devices in the planes need to be.
It also would stress the mesh routing algorithms!
There have been several orbiting digipeaters using VHF & UHF AX.25 amateur packet radio (including a payload I was involved with, SPRE). TCP/IP is possible over AX.25
There are WiFi range extenders that might be interesting to test at altitutde.
Line of Sight Calculator
At 5,000 feet, your line of sight to a ground-based station is 100 miles.
Not to mention Wide Angle which just did shows about corruption and murder that keeps the free Russian press down and inside the minds of suicide bombers, and Frontline World which has recently done shows on the capitalist revolution in China and tracing the paths Mexican migrants take into the US that often end up deadly.
The discussion of the use of atomic weapons in Japan can not really ignore the issue of the USSR, its potential entry into the war, and the possibility of part of Japan ending up as a communist dictatorship.
7/17/45 Diary Entry:
"He'll [Stalin and Russia] be in the Jap War on August 15th. Fini Japs when that comes about."
7/18/45 Letter to Bess Truman:
"...I've gotten what I came for - Stalin goes to war [against Japan] August 15 with no strings on it. He wanted a Chinese settlement [in return for entering the Pacific war, China would give Russia some land and other concessions] - and it is practically made - in a better form than I expected. [Chinese Foreign Minister] Soong did better than I asked him. I'll say that we'll end the war a year sooner now, and think of the kids who won't be killed! That is the important thing."
7/18/45 Diary Entry:
"P.M. [Prime Minister Winston Churchill] & I ate alone. Discussed Manhattan [atomic bomb] (it is a success). Decided to tell Stalin about it. Stalin had told P.M. of telegram from Jap Emperor asking for peace. Stalin also read his answer to me. It was satisfactory. Believe Japs will fold up before Russia comes in. I am sure they will when Manhattan appears over their homeland. I shall inform Stalin about it at an opportune time."
7/25/45 Diary Entry:
"The weapon is to be used against Japan between now and August 10th. I have told the Sec. of War, Mr. Stimson, to use it so that military objectives and soldiers and sailors are the target and not women and children. Even if the Japs are savages, ruthless, merciless and fanatic, we as the leader of the world for the common welfare cannot drop this terrible bomb on the old capital or the new [Kyoto or Tokyo]."
7/25/45 Diary Entry:
"He [Stimson] and I are in accord. The target will be a purely military one and we will issue a warning statement [known as the Potsdam Proclamation] asking the Japs to surrender and save lives. I'm sure they will not do that, but we will have given them the chance. It is certainly a good thing for the world that Hitler's crowd or Stalin's did not discover this atomic bomb. It seems to be the most terrible thing ever discovered, but it can be made the most useful."
7/31/45 Letter to Bess Truman:
"He [Stalin] doesn't know it but I have an ace in the hole and another one showing - so unless he has threes or two pair (and I know he has not) we are sitting all right." [A possible reference to the atomic bomb, possessed at the time by the U.S. but not by Russia.]
Libertarian Party Presidential candidate Michael Badnarik has his own blog.
And- furthermore-, rural Indian farmers don't need goddamn "ruggedized" linux-flavored PDAs. Clothe them. Get them running water. Get them something resembling health care.
Computer technology helps largely illiterate Indian dairy farmers to more effectively get their milk to market and buyers before it sours in the heat.
Computers are also being used to track Indian cows in a village to allow for better animal husbandry to increase milk production.
These things raise dairy farmer income, so they can afford the above things you mention.