Re:-- this is a Looney plan, READ THIS...
on
Lunar Power
·
· Score: 2
Actually our biggest problem (potentially) is a lack of cheap energy with low environmental risk (CO2, radioactivity, aldebo change, etc.)
Currently, the Federal government collects $15 billion per year from $.184 per gallon of gasoline taxes (the states also collect a similar amount). This could fund the $150 billion over 10 years. Or a $1 per gallon gas tax could fund it in two years (with possible significant economic issues from the tax rise).
Other thoughts: The Yucca mountain nuclear waste repository will cost about Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear waste repository will cost about $57.5 billion, so clearly we must be OK with the Federal Government spending billions for visionary energy projects...
Wife and I laid off right before Christmas 2001...
Wife: Despite slowdown, she finds architecture job in one month from AIA web site.
Me: Finds Internet/broadcast engineering crossover job in three months from employer web site. Definately not my last job (which was Product Manager, streaming media), lots of new stuff to learn, is fun so far.
Four months later: Government job I applied for in January contacts me in mid April. Doh!
The RF spectrum is full of underutilized channels which use obsolete technology, like AM television. You could probably put a spread-spectrum cell phone system right on top of a TV band and all TV viewers would see is a little more snow, if anything. But the TV industry would howl.
Remember, analog TV is going away by 2006. Then you'll have DTV channels delivering 19Mbps ATSC transport streams, either delivering 1 HD program, 4 standard definition programs, or various multiplexes of HD/SD and datacasting (for example, KLAS-DT was sending out a 1 Mbps Windows Media stream during the recent NAB convention).
Moreover, all current TV operations in channels 52-69 will be moved to the "core" channels 2-51, and the extra spectrum will be made available to other services.
Interference to DTV doesn't cause snow, you either don't see it (with bit error rates below the FEC correction) or it makes the picture go out (with higher bit error rates).
There will be a lot more oil on the market soon, because the Russian market is opening up (now that they can make a profit). Russia will be a significant threat to OPEC production limits.
Agreed - this comparison is pretty bogus. I have a feeling that they ran into computer speed problems with the WMP encodings.
The one big advantage Real has over WMP is SureStream, which continuously adapts bitrates during playback. QuickTime does not have this either.
Enterprise live video is probably the only place where QuickTime may make sense. It can multicast fairly well, and looks good at 1Mbps. Of course, you can also go with the hardware MPEG-1 systems as well. I have found that WMP has a problem with live encoded multicasts at 500kbps and up due to a weird property of the player to drop WMP packets during bursts. Pre-recorded WMP multicasts don't have the problem though. And Real's multicast licensing can be "challenging".
For unicast streaming to a general Internet user base, I'd suggest Real if you can afford it because of SureStream, WMP if you have a 2000/NT box, and Darwin/QT if you have no money and no Microsoft;)
While it's great that Codeweavers has managed to get enough of WINE working to support Windows Media Player, it's still a very bad idea for us to use it. Here's why.
Hey, are you suggesting an illegal restraint of trade?;)
My exposure to Ricochet was the "slow" version offered here in Washington, DC. It was most useful for remote use in areas where you knew the coverage was good. It could be good in one place, and horrible just down the block. I saw a lot of them in use in Congressional hearing rooms.
However, on the "reliability" side, CDPD ruled. Verizon CDPD has much better coverage, and you can depend on it almost everywhere. For my particular application, a mobile webcam in a car, CDPD was much more reliable than Ricochet. AT&T CDPD seems pretty good too, but I only used that for OmniSky with my Palm on Amtrak.
CDPD is a bit slower than the "slow" Ricochet. But of course, there is no Ricochet now, only CDPD...
I'd love to see how the "fast" Ricochet compares. There is a poletop unit at the end of my street, and I used to be able to get Ricochet in the bedroom with a window that faces that direction.
You can still get Usenet via satellite from Cidera. For a few hundred bucks a month, you get nearly 20 Mbps of feed. All the pr0n you want! Of course, this is aimed mainly at ISPs.
Re:If I might talk out of my ass for a moment....
on
I STILL Want My HDTV
·
· Score: 2
I would bet people with HD TV's recieving HD programing would spend more time watching TV than average, watch longer, and prefer HD programs to standard programs.
Arbitron's Personal People Meter technology allows this kind of data to be collected. It is a "pager-sized device that is carried by consumers. It automatically detects inaudible codes that TV and radio broadcasters as well as cable networks embed in the audio portion of their programming using encoders provided by Arbitron."
I think this shows the point - the FCC should require companies to pay to rent a Hertz of spectrum per year, regardless of use.
This would lead to all radios being software driven. A manufacturer would long-term lease a control channel to download new decoders and receiver frequencies to radios.
I think the key that a lot of people are missing is that this experiment did not use embyronic stem cells. The Washington Post says:
Scientists have not gained that kind of power over cow stem cells yet. So in the latest experiments the team grew the cloned embryos to an early fetal stage, at which point they were able to identify immature cells starting to turn into kidney cells.
I think that most researchers would consider this highly unethical to do in humans. Anti-abortion people, even those who are cool with embryonic stems cells, would consider this murder for organ-harvesting. I'm on the fence, I'd lean towards this a being OK, but we would all be happier to do with from embryonic stem cells and not from fetal proto-kidney cells.
Ok that is only a few and to clarify I am not saying that Linux is beating MS, but it does look that MS sees many good ideas with the work being done with Linux.
Correct. The existance of Linux is a competitive threat, despite the fact that Windows has a majority market share. The free market keeps working. No need for anti-trust action.
Unionized technicians at NPR rejected a contract offer Jan. 11 [2002] that would end longstanding rules governing who at the network can record audio on location, mix pieces for broadcast and perform other duties...NPR management proposed the contract to take advantage of new digital technology that renders analog tape machines obsolete and makes it easier for producers to finish taped reports. Technicians, some of whom spend an estimated 65 percent of their time mixing pieces, worry that the contract might make their jobs obsolete as well.
Charges for each Express Network data session that connects begin when you press or click the "SEND" or "Connect" button and have selected the "Express Network (1XRTT)" option at the user interface. Charges end when you press or click the "END" or "Disconnect" button.
OK, now imagine you are using the Sierra Aircard 550 PCMCIA card. Does just turning on the laptop start the session (and billing)?
I wonder if the PC card or interface software can be smart enough to recognize that it only needs to be connected to the network when you are sending or receiving data. The actual data utilization of most Web browsing at 114 kbps is probably only 10-20% of actual time spent by the surfer.
Of course, it you are watching video pr0n, your results may be higher.
They already offer a CDPD service that is 28.8, but it is unlimited usage for $40 a month. In addition, the CDPD service goes ANYWHERE Verizon does
I'm a big user of Verizon CDPD. 28.8kbps throughput is a significant overstatement. 14kbps is good for CDPD, 9.6kbps is what you get in general. That said, my wife uses it for her webcam, and it generally gets the job done. I've used CDPD on the Amtrak from DC to NYC. Both Verizon and AT&T (carrier for Palm-based Omnisky) have good coverage along the tracks with a few holes.
Of course, 144kbps sounds much better, but I can't imagine it being priced reasonably.
It is currently only available in the NE, Salt Lake City, San Francisco.
The Wired article claims "...20 percent of Verizon's infrastructure in Philadelphia can accommodate the services. Verizon has also been testing the network in Philadelphia for at least a year..."
One of the exiting possibilities stem cell research is someday we may be able to make better replacement organs without horking the immune system
For instance, my wife has gastroparesis, a "brain damage" of the nerves in the stomach. She could use a new stomach, but it would be crazy to do a stomach transplant now because of the risk of rejection and immune-supressing drugs. These cells could provide the progenitors required to create a new stomach.
"...Virtually all of Fiorina's compensation came from a $65.6 million stock award..."
While people think that many tech CEOs are inhumanly wealthy, only a few are, in terms of cold, hard cash. I don't think many make more than a million dollars per year in cold, hard cash. Most compensation is in stock, which as we know now can go down as well as up. Of course, it is possible to make hundreds of millions from stock (a friend of mine made $15 million). However, CEOs often have lock-up periods, or simply can't dump too much stock at one time without taking the price too far down, which would get them fired.
Be that as it may, the theory on CEO's making millions is that they are 1) highly experienced businesspeople doing 2)incredibly stressful 24/7 jobs and 3) if things go bad, you may get a big blot on your record, and may never have an equivalent job for the rest of your life - it might be your fault, or it might not. The "risk" is the reason for much of the high income.
In other words, "Let them eat cake"? Sounds pretty elitist to me.
Reality: The vast majority of people in the US that can be bothered to finish high school can go into the military for 2-3 years and then go to state or community college on the GI Bill.
My father in law was too screwed up to finish high school. His family was poor, and his dad was a drunk who killed himself while my father in law was a teenager.
But my father in law then went into the Army, then got a GED, did state college, state law school, passed the bar, was an insurance lawyer, and now has his own practice making over $100k/year.
I know a Salvadoran woman who came over as a maid, and now owns a chain of restaurants. I know a second-generation Salvadoran immigrant who saved up money, went to a votech school, learned to join fiber, punch CAT-5, etc., and went to work for Lucent installing DSLAMs.
Let's make no mistake, the US is full of some of the most spoiled people on the planet, at all socio-economic levels. You can live pretty cheap in this country if you don't do anything stupid like acquire a drug habit or child. If you really can't take it, save up money for a few years and move to Central America, where your money will go far.
I know plenty of slackers from upper-middle class homes who sit around smoking G and complaining about their temp jobs as well!
OK, here is a story of a poor Salvadoran woman. Due to a special deal the Inter-American Bank had, IAB workers could hire people from their own country to come to work as maids in the US. In El Salvador, it is typical for the middle and upper classes to have live-in maids/nannies/cooks/housekeepers, often several. So an IAB worker's family brought in a poor Salvadoran woman into the US.
She spent a few years as a maid in the US, and somehow managed to get US citizenship, learned English, made money by cooking typical Salvadoran food in her apartment for immigrants living near her. She eventually saved up enough to start a restaraunt, that became tremendously popular with the immigrant community in Washington, DC. Now she owns a chain of Salvadoran restaurants.
The key to the story here is that she could come to the US. Not everyone can. "Tyrany of place" is one of the key boundaries we need to eradicate if we are truly to seek global capitalism.
For example, the US needs to work with Vincente Fox and set up a guest-worker plan with Mexico, perhaps involving some element of background checking.
This book seems to ignore the fact the the average standard of living in the US has been on a steady climb for decades.
This is the key point. It wasn't all that long ago that there were plenty of rural areas without indoor plumbing. Everyone has a refrigerator today, TV, VCR, even DVD and surround sound. The price per square foot of a house has gone down significantly (although people are buying larger and thus more expensive houses, with vinyl siding, for some reason).
I'm sitting here listening to a radio station in France playing the kind of techno I want to listen to, despite the fact that I am in the US. Everyone I know in their 20's drive new cars, often SUVs. My dad could only afford used VWs from the 60's.
You simply cannot publish something you intend to patent untill you are some way along into the patenting paperwork....
This is not true, at least in the United States. US patent law allows the "first to invent" to patent an invention, period. There is no requirement not to disclose invention details to the public.
Secrecy has to do with "trade secrets," not patents.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually our biggest problem (potentially) is a lack of cheap energy with low environmental risk (CO2, radioactivity, aldebo change, etc.)
Currently, the Federal government collects $15 billion per year from $.184 per gallon of gasoline taxes (the states also collect a similar amount). This could fund the $150 billion over 10 years. Or a $1 per gallon gas tax could fund it in two years (with possible significant economic issues from the tax rise).
Other thoughts: The Yucca mountain nuclear waste repository will cost about Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear waste repository will cost about $57.5 billion, so clearly we must be OK with the Federal Government spending billions for visionary energy projects...
Wearable Rememberance Agent may be the "killer app".
Wife and I laid off right before Christmas 2001...
Wife: Despite slowdown, she finds architecture job in one month from AIA web site.
Me: Finds Internet/broadcast engineering crossover job in three months from employer web site. Definately not my last job (which was Product Manager, streaming media), lots of new stuff to learn, is fun so far.
Four months later: Government job I applied for in January contacts me in mid April. Doh!
The RF spectrum is full of underutilized channels which use obsolete technology, like AM television. You could probably put a spread-spectrum cell phone system right on top of a TV band and all TV viewers would see is a little more snow, if anything. But the TV industry would howl.
Remember, analog TV is going away by 2006. Then you'll have DTV channels delivering 19Mbps ATSC transport streams, either delivering 1 HD program, 4 standard definition programs, or various multiplexes of HD/SD and datacasting (for example, KLAS-DT was sending out a 1 Mbps Windows Media stream during the recent NAB convention).
Moreover, all current TV operations in channels 52-69 will be moved to the "core" channels 2-51, and the extra spectrum will be made available to other services.
Interference to DTV doesn't cause snow, you either don't see it (with bit error rates below the FEC correction) or it makes the picture go out (with higher bit error rates).
There will be a lot more oil on the market soon, because the Russian market is opening up (now that they can make a profit). Russia will be a significant threat to OPEC production limits.
I don't think it is scanned - that would be a heck of a laser scanning job, in terms of angle and speed. It would be very expensive.
The display probably comes from illuminating a comptuer-generated diffraction grating with a laser diode. No moving parts! But not customizable.
This is the same technology they use for projecting hearts, dollar signs, and skulls from laser pointers.
Agreed - this comparison is pretty bogus. I have a feeling that they ran into computer speed problems with the WMP encodings.
;)
The one big advantage Real has over WMP is SureStream, which continuously adapts bitrates during playback. QuickTime does not have this either.
Enterprise live video is probably the only place where QuickTime may make sense. It can multicast fairly well, and looks good at 1Mbps. Of course, you can also go with the hardware MPEG-1 systems as well. I have found that WMP has a problem with live encoded multicasts at 500kbps and up due to a weird property of the player to drop WMP packets during bursts. Pre-recorded WMP multicasts don't have the problem though. And Real's multicast licensing can be "challenging".
For unicast streaming to a general Internet user base, I'd suggest Real if you can afford it because of SureStream, WMP if you have a 2000/NT box, and Darwin/QT if you have no money and no Microsoft
While it's great that Codeweavers has managed to get enough of WINE working to support Windows Media Player, it's still a very bad idea for us to use it. Here's why.
;)
Hey, are you suggesting an illegal restraint of trade?
My exposure to Ricochet was the "slow" version offered here in Washington, DC. It was most useful for remote use in areas where you knew the coverage was good. It could be good in one place, and horrible just down the block. I saw a lot of them in use in Congressional hearing rooms.
However, on the "reliability" side, CDPD ruled. Verizon CDPD has much better coverage, and you can depend on it almost everywhere. For my particular application, a mobile webcam in a car, CDPD was much more reliable than Ricochet. AT&T CDPD seems pretty good too, but I only used that for OmniSky with my Palm on Amtrak.
CDPD is a bit slower than the "slow" Ricochet. But of course, there is no Ricochet now, only CDPD...
I'd love to see how the "fast" Ricochet compares. There is a poletop unit at the end of my street, and I used to be able to get Ricochet in the bedroom with a window that faces that direction.
I would pay $19.95 for the chance to throw baseballs at a dunktank filled with wet Cowboy Neal gummies and Jon Katz sitting on the plank
OK folks, time to invent the first Web-connected dunk tank! With live streaming video!
You can still get Usenet via satellite from Cidera. For a few hundred bucks a month, you get nearly 20 Mbps of feed. All the pr0n you want! Of course, this is aimed mainly at ISPs.
I would bet people with HD TV's recieving HD programing would spend more time watching TV than average, watch longer, and prefer HD programs to standard programs.
Arbitron's Personal People Meter technology allows this kind of data to be collected. It is a "pager-sized device that is carried by consumers. It automatically detects inaudible codes that TV and radio broadcasters as well as cable networks embed in the audio portion of their programming using encoders provided by Arbitron."
I think this shows the point - the FCC should require companies to pay to rent a Hertz of spectrum per year, regardless of use.
This would lead to all radios being software driven. A manufacturer would long-term lease a control channel to download new decoders and receiver frequencies to radios.
I think the key that a lot of people are missing is that this experiment did not use embyronic stem cells. The Washington Post says:
Scientists have not gained that kind of power over cow stem cells yet. So in the latest experiments the team grew the cloned embryos to an early fetal stage, at which point they were able to identify immature cells starting to turn into kidney cells.
I think that most researchers would consider this highly unethical to do in humans. Anti-abortion people, even those who are cool with embryonic stems cells, would consider this murder for organ-harvesting. I'm on the fence, I'd lean towards this a being OK, but we would all be happier to do with from embryonic stem cells and not from fetal proto-kidney cells.
Ok that is only a few and to clarify I am not saying that Linux is beating MS, but it does look that MS sees many good ideas with the work being done with Linux.
Correct. The existance of Linux is a competitive threat, despite the fact that Windows has a majority market share. The free market keeps working. No need for anti-trust action.
Check out this article:
Unionized technicians at NPR rejected a contract offer Jan. 11 [2002] that would end longstanding rules governing who at the network can record audio on location, mix pieces for broadcast and perform other duties...NPR management proposed the contract to take advantage of new digital technology that renders analog tape machines obsolete and makes it easier for producers to finish taped reports. Technicians, some of whom spend an estimated 65 percent of their time mixing pieces, worry that the contract might make their jobs obsolete as well.
On the Verizon Express Network Terms and Conditions page, it states:
Charges for each Express Network data session that connects begin when you press or click the "SEND" or "Connect" button and have selected the "Express Network (1XRTT)" option at the user interface. Charges end when you press or click the "END" or "Disconnect" button.
OK, now imagine you are using the Sierra Aircard 550 PCMCIA card. Does just turning on the laptop start the session (and billing)?
I wonder if the PC card or interface software can be smart enough to recognize that it only needs to be connected to the network when you are sending or receiving data. The actual data utilization of most Web browsing at 114 kbps is probably only 10-20% of actual time spent by the surfer.
Of course, it you are watching video pr0n, your results may be higher.
They already offer a CDPD service that is 28.8, but it is unlimited usage for $40 a month. In addition, the CDPD service goes ANYWHERE Verizon does
I'm a big user of Verizon CDPD. 28.8kbps throughput is a significant overstatement. 14kbps is good for CDPD, 9.6kbps is what you get in general. That said, my wife uses it for her webcam, and it generally gets the job done. I've used CDPD on the Amtrak from DC to NYC. Both Verizon and AT&T (carrier for Palm-based Omnisky) have good coverage along the tracks with a few holes.
Of course, 144kbps sounds much better, but I can't imagine it being priced reasonably.
It is currently only available in the NE, Salt Lake City, San Francisco.
The Wired article claims "...20 percent of Verizon's infrastructure in Philadelphia can accommodate the services. Verizon has also been testing the network in Philadelphia for at least a year..."
One of the exiting possibilities stem cell research is someday we may be able to make better replacement organs without horking the immune system
For instance, my wife has gastroparesis, a "brain damage" of the nerves in the stomach. She could use a new stomach, but it would be crazy to do a stomach transplant now because of the risk of rejection and immune-supressing drugs. These cells could provide the progenitors required to create a new stomach.
However:
"...Virtually all of Fiorina's compensation came from a $65.6 million stock award..."
While people think that many tech CEOs are inhumanly wealthy, only a few are, in terms of cold, hard cash. I don't think many make more than a million dollars per year in cold, hard cash. Most compensation is in stock, which as we know now can go down as well as up. Of course, it is possible to make hundreds of millions from stock (a friend of mine made $15 million). However, CEOs often have lock-up periods, or simply can't dump too much stock at one time without taking the price too far down, which would get them fired.
Be that as it may, the theory on CEO's making millions is that they are 1) highly experienced businesspeople doing 2)incredibly stressful 24/7 jobs and 3) if things go bad, you may get a big blot on your record, and may never have an equivalent job for the rest of your life - it might be your fault, or it might not. The "risk" is the reason for much of the high income.
In other words, "Let them eat cake"? Sounds pretty elitist to me.
Reality: The vast majority of people in the US that can be bothered to finish high school can go into the military for 2-3 years and then go to state or community college on the GI Bill.
My father in law was too screwed up to finish high school. His family was poor, and his dad was a drunk who killed himself while my father in law was a teenager.
But my father in law then went into the Army, then got a GED, did state college, state law school, passed the bar, was an insurance lawyer, and now has his own practice making over $100k/year.
I know a Salvadoran woman who came over as a maid, and now owns a chain of restaurants. I know a second-generation Salvadoran immigrant who saved up money, went to a votech school, learned to join fiber, punch CAT-5, etc., and went to work for Lucent installing DSLAMs.
Let's make no mistake, the US is full of some of the most spoiled people on the planet, at all socio-economic levels. You can live pretty cheap in this country if you don't do anything stupid like acquire a drug habit or child. If you really can't take it, save up money for a few years and move to Central America, where your money will go far.
I know plenty of slackers from upper-middle class homes who sit around smoking G and complaining about their temp jobs as well!
OK, here is a story of a poor Salvadoran woman. Due to a special deal the Inter-American Bank had, IAB workers could hire people from their own country to come to work as maids in the US. In El Salvador, it is typical for the middle and upper classes to have live-in maids/nannies/cooks/housekeepers, often several. So an IAB worker's family brought in a poor Salvadoran woman into the US.
She spent a few years as a maid in the US, and somehow managed to get US citizenship, learned English, made money by cooking typical Salvadoran food in her apartment for immigrants living near her. She eventually saved up enough to start a restaraunt, that became tremendously popular with the immigrant community in Washington, DC. Now she owns a chain of Salvadoran restaurants.
The key to the story here is that she could come to the US. Not everyone can. "Tyrany of place" is one of the key boundaries we need to eradicate if we are truly to seek global capitalism.
For example, the US needs to work with Vincente Fox and set up a guest-worker plan with Mexico, perhaps involving some element of background checking.
This book seems to ignore the fact the the average standard of living in the US has been on a steady climb for decades.
This is the key point. It wasn't all that long ago that there were plenty of rural areas without indoor plumbing. Everyone has a refrigerator today, TV, VCR, even DVD and surround sound. The price per square foot of a house has gone down significantly (although people are buying larger and thus more expensive houses, with vinyl siding, for some reason).
I'm sitting here listening to a radio station in France playing the kind of techno I want to listen to, despite the fact that I am in the US. Everyone I know in their 20's drive new cars, often SUVs. My dad could only afford used VWs from the 60's.
You simply cannot publish something you intend to patent untill you are some way along into the patenting paperwork....
This is not true, at least in the United States. US patent law allows the "first to invent" to patent an invention, period. There is no requirement not to disclose invention details to the public.
Secrecy has to do with "trade secrets," not patents.
BWT, I'm co-inventor on US patent 5,331,222.