Vint has essentially stated that the solution is for the incumbents to discard their entire physical plants and rebuild all the way to the home. That's bound to be a big hit with the boards of several companies.
If consumers were willing to pay the several thousand dollars for fiber installation, I'm sure local providers would go for it...
(Urban FTTH CAPEX is around $2000, suburban is around $4000, rural is $10000 and up. 60% of the CAPEX for FTTH is due to civil work, ducts, and cables, labor being a major part of the cost).
Shannon says there is plenty of room for more effecient use of the pipes we have already laid.
Fiber optics have all kinds of bandwidth. The problem is the last mile, which is still mainly copper, and very long copper runs in the US because of the history of our telephone deployment.
Re:BitCoins are simply a hobby, not a currency
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Bitcoin Price Crashes
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"In 19 century USA the value of dollar was growing, not falling, yet the economy of USA was also growing very quickly, as innovation and businesses was increasing, not falling."
You are on crack. There were plenty of dollar devaluations during the 1800's (1810's, 1860's for example).
Moreover, the major cause of the Great Depression was Fed driven deflation from 1929 to 1933. A recovery began only after the gold clause ban was passed and FDR devalued the dollar.
Many of the Android tablets are having trouble decoding H.264 at main profile without dropping frames. There seems to be some real systemic problem with these (iPad and even iPhone 4 have no such trouble).
US currency lost half its theoretical purchasing power in one day in (I believe) 1938 when the US government re-assigned the dollar-to-gold exchange ratio to be nearly half what it was before... which was of course was sort of a thumbed noise at the populace at that point anyway as they had outlawed private gold ownership 6 months beforehand
The background is that from 1928-1933, the Federal Reserve allowed the value of the dollar to rise steadily (aka deflation). At first it was to "pop the stock asset bubble" and to avoid loss of gold reserves to France, but then even after the stock market crash, there was a conscious decision not to devalue the dollar because of the large number of "gold clauses" in private contracts that required payment in dollars equivalent to an amount of gold.
The feeling of President Hoover was that too many people had mortgages with gold clauses and they would become much more deeply indebted as they would be paid in devalued dollars at work but have to pay back in gold equivalents. Thus he opposed devaluation.
But FDR decided that the federal government had the power to change all US contracts to ban "gold clauses", and pushed the gold clause ban through the Congress in 1933. Then he devalued the dollar, and also prohibited private gold ownership to lock down the gold flows and to avoid an underground gold economy that would sink the devalued dollar economy.
Countries that went off the gold standard earlier (such as Britain and Scandinavian countries in 1931, or Spain that never went back to the gold standard after leaving it during WWI) ended up with far less economic devastation during the Great Depression than the US.
I personally think FDR did a lot of stupid things during the Great Depression, but I have to admit that finding an acceptable way to devalue the dollar was the right thing to do. A mild recovery started in 1933, and probably the economy would have recovered fully during the late 1930's if FDR did not push through his other New Deal policies.
Only $2Bil? When we are spending $708 Billion on defense?
Did you vote for a candidate of a party whose platform says "The United States should both avoid entangling alliances and abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world"?
Because engineers are not homogeneous. Unions work well for labor-intensive workers where one warm body is basically equivalent to another. But there are so many sub-specialities with different demands in engineering and the quality of engineers vary greatly, so the more in-demand, higher-quality engineers will not want to become handcuffed to the lower-demanded, lower-quality engineers.
"Nice, now H.264 gets protection from submarine patents and WebM doesn't."
No one is stopping Google from presenting WebM to recognized standards development organizations such as SMPTE, ISO, ITU, etc. Heck, even Microsoft sent Windows Media through SMPTE as VC-1.
Doing so would likely cause some submarine IP to "surface". Not to mention you'd get a coherent, readable standard out of it.
The fact that Google is unwilling to present WebM for standardization is a red flag that something is amiss with it.
1) People in LA drive like nuts. Going straight through a red light appears to be normal if they are in a rush.
2) It should be kept in mind that most of the red light cameras are in the nicer parts of town (like Beverly Hills). Of course, that is where the rich nuts who need to speed through a red light to get to their lunch meeting with a producer live.
3) If I really thought red light cameras would keep these nuts from doing it, I'd support them, but I don't think they do. The rich nuts get mad about the tickets but it is unlikely to change them from "type A" personalities. And it means the people who can't afford the tickets slam on their brakes on yellow.
(speaking for myself), I feel that the biggest problem is when a collection of intellectual property is bundled into a standard (such as H.264), but despite the valiant efforts of standards development organizations to require their participants to document their participant's intellectual property in a standard, you can't really ensure that "submarine patents" by non-participants are not accidently infringed upon, and frankly even the SDOs don't have any real police power over participants that either on purpose or accidently don't disclose IP.
I feel that some organization (perhaps ANSI, or just the PTO) should be responsible for designating the most valuable standards (such as "national standards") for "mandatory IP declaration". This would start a process where within a set time (1-2 years), all intellectual property owners would have to "put up or shut up", i.e. declare that their intellectual property is covered by the national standard. If they don't declare during the limited time period, they forfeit their right to sue for infringement on implementation of the national standard.
Real businesses do not generally have a problem licensing known intellectual property protected by patent. It is the unknown that is the bigger risk, and makes adoptions of new standards slower (I've personally seen this at a previous position).
It seems to me a lot of the bad mistakes made at Fukushima after the tsunami was because in power-out mode, very few of the sensors in the reactor building were working. No one knew what the water level was in the pressure vessel, spent fuel pools, or even if water was pouring out from the pressure vessel. Sensors could be wired to be able to be powered by remote batteries (even if the batteries need to be helicoptered in).
Of course avoiding a power-out situation is the best. Back-up generators can have problems. Having the ability to easily plug-in a generator that could be flown in by helicopter (in case of closed roads) is a must. At Fukushima they had problems connecting in replacement generators brought in after the accident.
Just to be clear, in a light water reactor, you need water between fuel rods to have fission. Neutrons have to be slowed down ("moderated") by interacting with the water molecules before they are of an energy that can effectively fission the U-235.
A solid pool of melted LWR fuel cannot become critical.
The IEEE has the Medal of Honor that just went to Andrew J. Viterbi, without which your cell phone, WiFi, or digital TV would not be working.
The IEEE John von Neumann Medal is for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology. Recipients include Donald Knuth, Carver Mead, Gordon Bell, and John Hopcroft.
For example, if the US government started demanding payment in sycamore leaves, I doubt it would really cause people to start a brisk trade in sycamore leaves.
Oh yeah? What do you think will happen when people need 4 trillion sycamore leaves to pay to the government, or go to jail? I predict a very brisk trade indeed, huge sycamore groves genetically engineered to quickly grow and produce leaves, harvested by an army of workers. It would have to be a global operation!
the reactor system has a limited maximum temperature beyond which components will melt or otherwise be damaged allowing the fuel to flow to places it shouldn't
The design of FliBE is if the fuel gets too hot, it melts through a relief valve where through which it drains out and is spread out over a large area to reduce reactivity and cool down.
Put large scale solar thermal plants in the deserts.
Would be nice, except BrightSource and Tessera Solar have had to cancel desert solar power projects because they were located in the 941,000-acre Mojave Trails National Monument that Senator Dianne Feinstein has proposed.
An 85-mile 500-kilovolt $500 million transmission line to bring solar power to Los Angeles has also been brought to a halt by conservationists.
Activists are blocking a 200-megawatt wind farm in the McCain Valley, CA, and a 750 MW solar thermal array proposed for Imperial County, CA.
Overall, 160 applications for large-scale US solar projects have been stalled at the BLM for years now. If all of these projects were built, they would generate 97,000 MW of electricity, or enough to power 29 million homes, according to BLM figures.
Luckily was CAN outsource this. Energia Sierra Juarez will be a 1,250 MW wind farm just over the border in Mexico. And experts believe there could be upwards of 10,000 MW of untapped wind potential in Baja California alone.
Yet the median public-school teacher salary is significantly higher than the median private-school teacher salary ($49,600 versus $36,300 in 2007-2008):
Yes, because your life is not at risk teaching private school. In private school, you have a class full of kids whose parents want them to be there, who are less likely to cause disruption, and are generally more enjoyable. And if one of them does cause a massive disruption, they could actually be removed from the school permanently, which is nearly impossible in public schools.
It should also be kept in mind that those lower-paid private school teachers are producing more highly educated students...
If we wanted to get results from public education, we would give principals complete power over teacher salary/hiring/firing, give the principals a per-student budget to divy up among the teachers and operational costs, and then have give district officials the power over principal salary/hiring/firing without all the union red tape.
college is there to make you a "more informed, well-rounded" person.
What I mostly got out of college was having to buckle down and learn the tough stuff like differential equations, electromagnetics, control theory, circuit analysis, and digital signal processing.
Without existing in a concentrated educational environment of college under threat of grading, most folks would have a tough time learning those subjects (organic chemistry is probably another one).
On the other hand, it is easier to assimilate history, religions, philosophy, etc. from Learning Company classes on MP3 while commuting to/from work.
We could require people to develop on a specific platform to make the software easier to analyze, then have digitally signed software sold on a single walled-garden, only allow authorized software to run on the phone, with the phone provider able to take down and turn off any malware app as needed.
Slashdot Mirror
Keep government out of my Google!
Vint has essentially stated that the solution is for the incumbents to discard their entire physical plants and rebuild all the way to the home. That's bound to be a big hit with the boards of several companies.
If consumers were willing to pay the several thousand dollars for fiber installation, I'm sure local providers would go for it...
(Urban FTTH CAPEX is around $2000, suburban is around $4000, rural is $10000 and up. 60% of the CAPEX for FTTH is due to civil work, ducts, and cables, labor being a major part of the cost).
Shannon says there is plenty of room for more effecient use of the pipes we have already laid.
Fiber optics have all kinds of bandwidth. The problem is the last mile, which is still mainly copper, and very long copper runs in the US because of the history of our telephone deployment.
"In 19 century USA the value of dollar was growing, not falling, yet the economy of USA was also growing very quickly, as innovation and businesses was increasing, not falling."
You are on crack. There were plenty of dollar devaluations during the 1800's (1810's, 1860's for example).
Moreover, the major cause of the Great Depression was Fed driven deflation from 1929 to 1933. A recovery began only after the gold clause ban was passed and FDR devalued the dollar.
Many of the Android tablets are having trouble decoding H.264 at main profile without dropping frames. There seems to be some real systemic problem with these (iPad and even iPhone 4 have no such trouble).
See, you buy stuff at WalMart, and you fund a radio telescope!
US currency lost half its theoretical purchasing power in one day in (I believe) 1938 when the US government re-assigned the dollar-to-gold exchange ratio to be nearly half what it was before... which was of course was sort of a thumbed noise at the populace at that point anyway as they had outlawed private gold ownership 6 months beforehand
The background is that from 1928-1933, the Federal Reserve allowed the value of the dollar to rise steadily (aka deflation). At first it was to "pop the stock asset bubble" and to avoid loss of gold reserves to France, but then even after the stock market crash, there was a conscious decision not to devalue the dollar because of the large number of "gold clauses" in private contracts that required payment in dollars equivalent to an amount of gold.
The feeling of President Hoover was that too many people had mortgages with gold clauses and they would become much more deeply indebted as they would be paid in devalued dollars at work but have to pay back in gold equivalents. Thus he opposed devaluation.
But FDR decided that the federal government had the power to change all US contracts to ban "gold clauses", and pushed the gold clause ban through the Congress in 1933. Then he devalued the dollar, and also prohibited private gold ownership to lock down the gold flows and to avoid an underground gold economy that would sink the devalued dollar economy.
Countries that went off the gold standard earlier (such as Britain and Scandinavian countries in 1931, or Spain that never went back to the gold standard after leaving it during WWI) ended up with far less economic devastation during the Great Depression than the US.
I personally think FDR did a lot of stupid things during the Great Depression, but I have to admit that finding an acceptable way to devalue the dollar was the right thing to do. A mild recovery started in 1933, and probably the economy would have recovered fully during the late 1930's if FDR did not push through his other New Deal policies.
Only $2Bil? When we are spending $708 Billion on defense?
Did you vote for a candidate of a party whose platform says "The United States should both avoid entangling alliances and abandon its attempts to act as policeman for the world"?
Why hasn't someone started a Engineers Union?
Because engineers are not homogeneous. Unions work well for labor-intensive workers where one warm body is basically equivalent to another. But there are so many sub-specialities with different demands in engineering and the quality of engineers vary greatly, so the more in-demand, higher-quality engineers will not want to become handcuffed to the lower-demanded, lower-quality engineers.
US currency is backed by the fact the Federal government will put you in jail if you don't pay your taxes in dollars.
"Nice, now H.264 gets protection from submarine patents and WebM doesn't."
No one is stopping Google from presenting WebM to recognized standards development organizations such as SMPTE, ISO, ITU, etc. Heck, even Microsoft sent Windows Media through SMPTE as VC-1.
Doing so would likely cause some submarine IP to "surface". Not to mention you'd get a coherent, readable standard out of it.
The fact that Google is unwilling to present WebM for standardization is a red flag that something is amiss with it.
[note: based on LA Westside experience only]
1) People in LA drive like nuts. Going straight through a red light appears to be normal if they are in a rush.
2) It should be kept in mind that most of the red light cameras are in the nicer parts of town (like Beverly Hills). Of course, that is where the rich nuts who need to speed through a red light to get to their lunch meeting with a producer live.
3) If I really thought red light cameras would keep these nuts from doing it, I'd support them, but I don't think they do. The rich nuts get mad about the tickets but it is unlikely to change them from "type A" personalities. And it means the people who can't afford the tickets slam on their brakes on yellow.
(speaking for myself), I feel that the biggest problem is when a collection of intellectual property is bundled into a standard (such as H.264), but despite the valiant efforts of standards development organizations to require their participants to document their participant's intellectual property in a standard, you can't really ensure that "submarine patents" by non-participants are not accidently infringed upon, and frankly even the SDOs don't have any real police power over participants that either on purpose or accidently don't disclose IP.
I feel that some organization (perhaps ANSI, or just the PTO) should be responsible for designating the most valuable standards (such as "national standards") for "mandatory IP declaration". This would start a process where within a set time (1-2 years), all intellectual property owners would have to "put up or shut up", i.e. declare that their intellectual property is covered by the national standard. If they don't declare during the limited time period, they forfeit their right to sue for infringement on implementation of the national standard.
Real businesses do not generally have a problem licensing known intellectual property protected by patent. It is the unknown that is the bigger risk, and makes adoptions of new standards slower (I've personally seen this at a previous position).
It seems to me a lot of the bad mistakes made at Fukushima after the tsunami was because in power-out mode, very few of the sensors in the reactor building were working. No one knew what the water level was in the pressure vessel, spent fuel pools, or even if water was pouring out from the pressure vessel. Sensors could be wired to be able to be powered by remote batteries (even if the batteries need to be helicoptered in).
Of course avoiding a power-out situation is the best. Back-up generators can have problems. Having the ability to easily plug-in a generator that could be flown in by helicopter (in case of closed roads) is a must. At Fukushima they had problems connecting in replacement generators brought in after the accident.
Just to be clear, in a light water reactor, you need water between fuel rods to have fission. Neutrons have to be slowed down ("moderated") by interacting with the water molecules before they are of an energy that can effectively fission the U-235.
A solid pool of melted LWR fuel cannot become critical.
How is the dollar backed by the US government?
The US government will put you in jail if you don't pay your taxes in dollars.
The IEEE has the Medal of Honor that just went to Andrew J. Viterbi, without which your cell phone, WiFi, or digital TV would not be working.
The IEEE John von Neumann Medal is for outstanding achievements in computer-related science and technology. Recipients include Donald Knuth, Carver Mead, Gordon Bell, and John Hopcroft.
For example, if the US government started demanding payment in sycamore leaves, I doubt it would really cause people to start a brisk trade in sycamore leaves.
Oh yeah? What do you think will happen when people need 4 trillion sycamore leaves to pay to the government, or go to jail? I predict a very brisk trade indeed, huge sycamore groves genetically engineered to quickly grow and produce leaves, harvested by an army of workers. It would have to be a global operation!
I think this show will prove you can make a good SF TV show on a reasonable budget with excellent special effects...
Some references:
Power line canceled
Brightsource canceled
Six solar projects blocked by Native American groups
On the effect of the Mojave national monuments on solar projects
the reactor system has a limited maximum temperature beyond which components will melt or otherwise be damaged allowing the fuel to flow to places it shouldn't
The design of FliBE is if the fuel gets too hot, it melts through a relief valve where through which it drains out and is spread out over a large area to reduce reactivity and cool down.
Put large scale solar thermal plants in the deserts.
Would be nice, except BrightSource and Tessera Solar have had to cancel desert solar power projects because they were located in the 941,000-acre Mojave Trails National Monument that Senator Dianne Feinstein has proposed.
An 85-mile 500-kilovolt $500 million transmission line to bring solar power to Los Angeles has also been brought to a halt by conservationists.
Activists are blocking a 200-megawatt wind farm in the McCain Valley, CA, and a 750 MW solar thermal array proposed for Imperial County, CA.
Overall, 160 applications for large-scale US solar projects have been stalled at the BLM for years now. If all of these projects were built, they would generate 97,000 MW of electricity, or enough to power 29 million homes, according to BLM figures.
Luckily was CAN outsource this. Energia Sierra Juarez will be a 1,250 MW wind farm just over the border in Mexico. And experts believe there could be upwards of 10,000 MW of untapped wind potential in Baja California alone.
Yet the median public-school teacher salary is significantly higher than the median private-school teacher salary ($49,600 versus $36,300 in 2007-2008):
Yes, because your life is not at risk teaching private school. In private school, you have a class full of kids whose parents want them to be there, who are less likely to cause disruption, and are generally more enjoyable. And if one of them does cause a massive disruption, they could actually be removed from the school permanently, which is nearly impossible in public schools.
It should also be kept in mind that those lower-paid private school teachers are producing more highly educated students...
If we wanted to get results from public education, we would give principals complete power over teacher salary/hiring/firing, give the principals a per-student budget to divy up among the teachers and operational costs, and then have give district officials the power over principal salary/hiring/firing without all the union red tape.
college is there to make you a "more informed, well-rounded" person.
What I mostly got out of college was having to buckle down and learn the tough stuff like differential equations, electromagnetics, control theory, circuit analysis, and digital signal processing.
Without existing in a concentrated educational environment of college under threat of grading, most folks would have a tough time learning those subjects (organic chemistry is probably another one).
On the other hand, it is easier to assimilate history, religions, philosophy, etc. from Learning Company classes on MP3 while commuting to/from work.
We could require people to develop on a specific platform to make the software easier to analyze, then have digitally signed software sold on a single walled-garden, only allow authorized software to run on the phone, with the phone provider able to take down and turn off any malware app as needed.
Oh yeah, that is called an iPhone!