The reason red LEDs are used is because they are the cheapest, as longer wavelength bandgap devices are easier to make.
The exception to this logic is infrared, since LEDs are typically used for visual indication. Infrared LEDs are useless for this purpose so manufacturers don't make nearly as many of them...
Now what does this mean for "real world" performance? It means that many applications will see either a very small performance increase or none at all, as it is latency and not bandwidth that is the most important performance factor. Let us explain this in more detail.
The real world scoop on this is that someone typing a document in OpenOffice or surfing the internet won't see any performance increase over a Pentium-II 233 MHz machine with 64MB of 60ns RAM. Gamers might get 46 gajillion frames per second instead of 42 gajillion frames per second, which is completely indistinguishable to humans, so they won't notice either
I, on the other hand, might see a simulation of a 5250-node electromagnetic scattering problem take 36 hours instead of 39 hours, which is quite significant. But, I would probably get the same increase in performance by going through and cleaning up my code a little. FORTRAN is funny that way...
Making computers faster to the nth power only makes code that's worse to the n+1th power:)
Just how much momentum do the photons in a 1.21 Gigawatt laser have anyway? Didn't the flux capacitor get destroyed when the train plowed through the time machine?
Is there enough momentum in that laser to actually change the velocity of a flying windows license appreciably enough to make it miss (assuming it's on a collision course - after all - it might blue-screen before it hits Earth and stop say, 62 miles from impact).
The only thing this laser deflection system might buy us is instead of being annihilated by a really fast, frozen rock from outer space, we're annihilated by a piping hot rock from outer space that turns the Atlantic Ocean into a giant thingie of Jiffy-Pop before we all are vaporized, or have our guts ripped out.
Funny how energy expended always seems to come back and bite us in the proverbial arse... How many more movie references can I cram into this post?
There are 11 802.11b channels. Each channel overlaps with its adjacent channels to some degree. However, channels 1, 6, and 11 are completely clear of each other (there's a very good reason they set it up this way). Just get with your neighbor and agree on which channels you're going to use.
The reason there are three clear channels is just in case someone wants to set up a cellular network of 802.11b access points. While you do need 6 channels for the standard hexagonal cellular spectrum re-use plan, a lot can be done with just three.
As for interference with 2.4GHz phones, there's no reason to assume that an access point will comlpetely wipe out a cordless phone. The ISM band runs from 2400 to 2483MHz, inclusive, and neither a cordless phone nor an access point will use anywhere near all of this spectrum.
There _are_ obvious implications if everyone goes out and puts a long-haul access point on their roof. The band WILL get crowded and bad things could happen. We'll just have to see how fubar this gets and just wait for the FCC to either start licensing access points (for a hefty fee, of course) or just start pushing everyone to other spectrum like U-NII (5.3, 5.8GHz). The market is sort of going that way anyway.
Not that i'm aware of. The only limit that I know of is +36dBm EIRP (4 Watts) for point to multipoint links and +48dBm EIRP (~63 Watts) for point to point links.
A 1 watt amplifier with a 6dBi Antenna get's you your +36dBm, while a 1 watt amp with an 18dBi antenna gets you +48dBm. This is why antennae come in convenient sizes of 6dBi, 12dBi, and 18dBi. Combinations of these gains with +24, +27, and +30dBm amplifiers get you to the limits.
802.11b amplifiers and antennae are NOT, I reapeat, NOT illegal. There are certain hoops that you have to jump through, but there's nothing illegal about building a system with amps and antennae. There are no filing requirements, no licensing requirements, or anything. You just have to use certified equipment. Certified equipment consists of a combination of an Access Point, an Amplifier, and an Antenna, and all interconnecting transmission lines, that have, together as a system, been certified to be compliant with FCC rules for the unlicensed spectrum. Of course, such systems cost several times what you can buy COTS (commercial, off the shelf) stuff for, because having equipment certified is not an easy nor inexpensive task.
You may ask why you can't just stick an antenna on your access point. You can, but you have to be aware that you're only changing the receiving antenna. It is against the law for a consumer product to give the consumer access to change the transmitting antenna. The antenna either has to use a fixed, non-removable proprietary connector (reverse SMA, reverse TNC, or other connector that you can't just buy at radio shack), or have an antenna that cannot be removed at all.
For example, look at the D-link 900AP+. It has a single, removable antenna on the rear. If you open one up, you'll actually see two transmission lines connected to the radio card. One of these goes to the rear jack and the other to an electrically short antenna inside the case. This short antenna is the transmitting antenna, which is compliant with the rules because the consumer cannot readily change it.
Also, because these things use separate transmitting and receiving antennae, you'd have to put TWO antennae on the roof if you wanted a longer haul 802.11 system. It wouldn't be enough to simply boost your transmitter EIRP, you'd have to have bigger ears to hear a little laptop that was far away.
An EULA by a private organization is NO DIFFERENT from a constitutionally sound law passed by a majority of our elected senate and subject to the scrutiny, [1] of an impartial office whose members are appointed by a democratically elected leader (and subject to approval by our democratically elected senate.)
An EULA is very different. You have the right to terminate an EULA any time you wish and to be no longer bound by its requirements. You do not have the right to terminate a constitutionally sound law - you are always bound by its requirements, regardless of whether you agreed with it in the first place.
How many people can you find (anywhere) that want to be taxed online, so they have to pay online taxes in addition to shipping and handling? Has anyone asked the people about this, or even mentioned it in an election? No. My guess, 99.99% of the people in America don't want online taxation. So we shouldn't have it. Its called Democracy."
You must have forgotten that we live in a Republic, not a Democracy. The people have no real power whatsoever. Even if the people voted to repeal internet taxation, the politicians are under no obligation whatsoever to obey the vote. It's not really any different than a presidential election in which the Electors are under no obligation to cast their votes for the candidate that wins the popular election in a given state.
The *real* reason that internet taxation is wrong goes Way Way Back(TM) to our childhood in which we were usually taught that if we didn't have money to buy something, we couldn't buy it. The government has tried several ways to increase revenue.
First, during the Civil War, the government enacted the Bureau of Internal Revenue. This was a very small amount compared to excise taxes and tariff duties (the old way of doing it). The first self-expanding perpetual bureaucracy is born. Read more about the Civil War Bureau of Internal Revenue Here... And a way-way-cool tax history museum...
During the Johnson administration, the gubment took money off the gold standard and just printed as much as it needed to cover its spending programs. This ridiculous endeavor led to the hyper-inflation of the 70's and the 99.9% top incremental income tax bracket during the Carter administration, and the double-digit interest rates going into the 80's. It's amazing to me that the government didn't learn during this time that raising taxes does not increase revenue for the gubment - IT LOWERS IT because of the burden it places on the economy. People have less money to spend, so there are fewer sales, fewer profits, lower salaries, and LESS INCOME TO TAX. But, I digress...
Enter Reaganomics - now, whatever you learned in your left-wing democratic union-controlled public school about Reagan and his economic policies was blatantly incorrect. When Reagan took office in 1981, the government's purse had 18 bullet holes in it and was leaking money like a sieve. Our great country was spiraling almost inexorably toward bankruptcy, and we came very close to defaulting on a round or two of long term bonds. The fact is that after the gigantic tax cuts in the early 80's, IRS revenue INCREASED. That's right, cutting taxes INCREASED revenue for the government. *shock*
"but, but, but, what about the deficit?" - okay, the deficit was caused by Harry Truman. Yes, the deficit spending in the 80's was mainly due to the Truman Doctrine, which required the US to fight the spread of communism throughout the world. There was this little country east of Europe, called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, that had at some point in history developed nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and was on the rampage. Since WWII, they had already installed their communist regimes in most of eastern Europe and were pushing west. The Arms Race was a very necessary evil, and as much as I hate to say it, we had to win the cold war no matter what. Combine that with an unchecked social welfare program that was often corrupt and abused, and we were suddenly saddled with mind boggling debt.
Here's a little perspective on the debt: if you were to pave a 12' wide road with one billion one dollar bills, you would have a road long enough to drive 252,000 miles, about the distance to the moon. If you were to pave a road with the national debt's worth of one dollar bills, you could drive 1.5 million miles. However, there isn't enough cotton on earth to make that many one dollar bills. (FYI all US currency bills are 6.14" x 2.61" and weigh approximately one gram per note, regardless of denomination).
The point here is in agreement with yours that the government is stupid when it comes to fiscal management. When their budget runs over, they just raise more taxes to pay for it. They don't care about the long term effects because there's no accountability. The worst that can happen is that they'll either get "voted" out of office or hit their term limit. But, nothing they do while in office will usually have a negative effect until they're long gone..
We need a balanced budget LAW, just just some sissy amendment that can be changed and re-written to suit the convenience of the politicians, but something that is irrevokable, unmodifiable, and carries the status of a high crime. IN fact, I can write it right now, and IANEAL:
"It shall be a high crime against the United States for any individual or group of individuals to cause a government agency to spend more money than it receives."
"It shall be a high crime against the United States for any individual or group of individuals to cause the amount of money a government agency receives to increase at an annual rate that is higher than the sum of the rate of inflation and the rate of growth of the Gross Domestic Product."
We owe it to ourselves (literally!) to pay down the national debt. Every bond you buy from the government represents money borrowed by the government, from you, to spend on $4000 toilet seats, private jets, politicians' vacations around the world, and let's not forget the $58,000 486 machines that the government is probably still buying.
1) Grant of license. XYZ corporation grants you exclusive license to execute this install program precisely once on each PC. This license is perpetual and irrevokable, and survives the death of the licensee and continues upon his/her heirs/survivors. In the event of death, the licensee's heirs shall continue to be bound by the terms of this agreement.
2) Access to information. You agree that we (ACME Worm Co.) will need periodic and/or continuous access to your computer for the purpose of sending unsolicited commercial email. You grant us unlimited irrevokable privelege to access your Microsoft Outlook(TM) address book for this purpose. You agree to hold us harmless for any ill effects this may have on your reputation or financial status or social standing in your community.
3) General Power of Attorney. You agree to appoint Acme Worm Co. as your attorney and agent in general. You grant us exclusive right and privelege to execute any legal agreement with any entity, individual, or corporation, in your name. We may, at our discretion, execute any agreement we see as necessary to the continuance of our enterprise, with any financial, legal, educational, or other institution; including, but not limited to, the transfer of monetary funds from any instrument, account, or fund established in your name, either jointly or individually.
4) Binding adoption agreement. You agree that Acme Worm Co. has exclusive right and privelege to the adoption of any child born after the execution of this agreement that we can reasonably presume is your direct descendent or is under your legal guardianship. Any such children become the sole property of Acme Worm Co. and shall be surrendered to any company human resources officer on demand.
5) Tranfser of Ownership, personal property. You agree that upon execution of this irrevokable agreement, you will grant title of ownership to Acme Worm Co. of any and all personal belongings, assets, intellectual property, or general knowledge. These items will be transferred to Acme Worm Co. automatically at the end of this installation. You agree to report to the Acme Worm Co. BrainDrain(tm) facility within 24 hours of the execution of this agreement for the transfer of knowledge outlined herein.
6) Survivability and waiver of rights. This license is perpetual, irrevokable, and cannot be canceled by any means, person, instrument, court order, or decree. You agree to waive all rights granted you under the US Constitution and the US Code of Federal Regulations, as well as any protections afforded you by the laws of your State, County, or Municipality. You may not pass GO, and you may not collect $200, as this would constitute personal property under section 5 of this agreement. You further agree to accept any responsibility for any action taken by Acme Worm Co, it's affiliates, partners, software programs, developers, officers, or shareholders. You agree to surrender upon demand to any law enforcement agency upon demand in connection with your responsibility under this section.
I move to a developing country and act as a developer/admin/etc for free, to help get them hooked on the internet so we can have another telecom boom in the US?
Americans will NEVER switch to SI (much to my dismay).. Here's why:
Football players' union would demand a proportional increase in salary for the extra distance
Football stadiums are too short to extend to a 100m playing field and still have enough setback behind the end zones to comply with OSHA safety regulations
A quarter pounder sounds bigger than an eighth-kilogrammer, and 100g sounds tiny
Americans couldn't comprehend reciprocating fuel mileage (Liters/100km rather than mi/gal)
Tons of government software would have to be thrown out and/or rewritten for the switch (wait a minute.... they still use FORTRAN77 for stuff)
Having unified units throughout the world might be a threat to our national security (who the hell anywhere else knows what an URG is?)
Sears couldn't sell a 500 piece socket set, half of which is completely useless
What woman would ever admit to wearing a size 32 shoe or having a size 65 waistline? (Although they'd probably love having a size 86 chest or being 168 tall)
The Daytona 500 would become the Daytona 804.672, and that number is too big for NASCAR fans to comprehend (it was only recently that they could start having 600 mile races)
A Wendy's Triple w/ Everything has 810 caliories, which is bad enough. However it has 3,391,308 joules - try selling the biggie-size on that one!
Who wants to pay for gas by the liter? (or shall I say "litre")
Americans don't want to have to start mis-spelling (interject) everything, like "colour" and "litre" and "behaviour" etc
The mile markers on I-85 in Alabama couldn't be so cool anymore - now they go 1,1,2,3,2,4,3,5,6,4,7,8,5,9, etc....
and so on, so as you can see, conversion to SI in America wouldn't be worth the trouble...
"The Fermi Paradox [ufoskeptic.org] asks: If intelligent life is common, given the billions of years since the formation of our galaxy, why have E.T.'s not yet reached (and perhaps colonized) Earth?:
"Method and apparatus for the protection of methods, procedures, and apparatuses by grant of exclusive rights by a governing body having executive authority over such rights" (Grant of Patent)
"Method and procedure for the dismantling of civilized society by exclusive diversion with legistative processes" (making people so busy defending themselves against lawsuits to do anything productive)
"Method and apparatus for the production of intellectual property and information by means of the exercise of a passive or active electromechanical or electronic relay causing the dissipation of energy in various ceramic, plastic, semiconductor, or organic elements, causing the semi-permanent organization of atomic or subatomic particles on a dielectric, metallic, organic, semiconductor, ceramic, or plasticine substrate, also causing the luminescence of phosphorescent or electronic optoelectrical or optoelectronic elements." (use of computer)
Tort reform won't fix the IP law problem. The problem here is that (all together now) "the patent office can't equate something done on the web to something that is already commonplace on the street."
You walk into a store and buy something. That is NO DIFFERENT than going on the web and buying something. There's no patent to be had there. There's nothing novel about shopping online. There was catalog shopping with phone-ordering for YEARS before these idiots started giving patents to "online e-business."
My patent is still pending on "Method and Apparatus for facilitating the converstion of energy by interchange of gases in an organic membraneous environment" (remaining alive by breathing)
I say it's much much better! Why should I spend $9.50 on a ticket, $12 for two cokes, $8 for a popcorn, $7.50 for a box of M&Ms, and another $10 to have the sticky funk removed from the bottom of my shoe, when I can wait 6 months, pay $3.50 to rent the DVD, and watch it at home?
But, to address Hollywood's point, piracy is illegal, as in against the law. It is stealing, regardless of the excuse. I listen to the constant droan from the 'net community that "if they weren't so expensive, we wouldn't have to steal.".... "have to" steal? Nobody makes you steal - and stealing that movie does not make it cheaper, it makes it more expensive.
Even if you go to best buy, you can routinely pick up DVDs of new movies for less than $20 on sale. Twenty bucks, and you can watch the movie as often as you want. For movies you don't like that much, pay the $4 to rent it. If you think it's too expensive, don't buy it and write a letter to the producers saying that you think they're too expensive. Movie prices aren't arbitrary, you know. The price of everything is based on what the marketeers think people are willing to pay. If you tell them you aren't willing to pay X, they'll surely make note of it.
All you're accomplishing by stealing is punishing us law-abiding citizens. What do you think inspired the DMCA? Do you really think that the DMCA would be a reality today if piracy (again, theft, as in stealing) weren't such a big problem? If someone were to steal your paycheck, you'd be furious. If someone were to steal your paycheck every time you got paid, you'd be out for blood.
Disclaimer: I don't work for the movie industry, the MPAA, RIAA, or anyone else that has any material involvement in cinematic entertainment.
Your comment, sir, is underrated. This is a very good point. One could argue that it would be trivial for universities to throttle P2P traffic, but that would have profound effects on the validity of the RIAAs request to control or ban the traffic alltogether. The colleges, if they implemented traffic throttles on P2P traffic, would basically be admitting that the P2P concept is indeed a problem and the RIAA would immediately use that as evidence in their cases against others. "American universities have acknowledged that P2P is a scourge that needs to be controlled."
Now that I think about it, this may have been an absolutely BRILLIANT move on the part of the RIAA sock-it-to-you-legal team. Now universities, many of which may very well be being crushed under the 300-lb router, may be forced to either comply with their demands, or at the very least lend credibility to their argument.
The RIAA tried this crap a few years ago. Most of the Universities they contacted politely told them that it's not their job to enforce Federal law, and that they had no intent to try to put the technology in place that would prevent P2P networking. I know my Alma Mater was one of them, so I'm very interested if they will change their mind this time, keeping with their rapid and steady descent from a top notch university to just another sea of politcal correctness without any hint of quality education. After all, they'll be too busy playing Internet Cop to bother teaching anybody anything.
Deep down, the RIAA knows that it has absolutely no hope of forcing this upon universities, which is why these letters are absent any cease and desist language. They're just going to run it up the flagpole and see who looks.
The final word should be here that it is the job of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to enforce Federal law. No other entity, whether state or local, has the jurisdiction nor obligation to enforce the CFR. If distributing copyrighted material is a federal crime, then it's the justice deparment, and no one else, who has the power to indict. Civilly, I find it hard to believe that the RIAA would be able to prove that distributing a song cost them any money. What downloader is going to take the stand and testify that he/she would have bought the CD had they not been able to download it? I sure wouldn't. In fact, I would testify that the ability to "try before you buy" has led to my purchasing several CDs that I normally would not have even known about, let alone bought.
Every single Borders bookstore allows you to listen to a CD, in CD quality, and in its entirety, without any inhibitions, before you buy it. Does that not constitute illegal distribution, i.e. allowing someone to listed to copyrighted music without paying? Why isn't Borders being served? How is this different than P2P, save the portability of the music?
Interstation interference is effectively solved in broadcasting by dividing the regions into BTAs and separating frequencies by BTA.
This is precisely what the FCC does, except BTAs are much more scientifically determined. Cell phone networks are designed for continuous coverage with as few holes as possible. BTAs are designed to guarantee a station can cover X number of people while at the same time PREVENTING a broadcaster from encroaching on the boundary of another stations BTA (on the same channel).
Well, I was indirectly involved, or at least very well informed on this process from the beginning. There was a bitter debate between various HDTV consortiums, and the one with the lesser technology won. I believe it was due mostly to the fact that many stations had already gone on the air and were complaining about the cost of using a different modulation scheme (i.e. replacing hardware.
One more technical (and speculative) answer is this: COFDM, since it requires a lower signal to noise ratio, can cover a greater range than AM (8VSB) can, given the same power. Therefore, with moderate amounts of power, it would be more likely for a DTV station to intrude into another station's BTA. So, rather than use less power, it was decided to simply keep the lesser capable modulation standard and not require the hundreds of stations on the air to replace their equipment.
Another more sound technical answer is this: in OFDM, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, there exists the possibilty to have a very high dynamic range in the signal. That is, the strength of the strongest signal versus the strength of the weakest signal. So, if you wanted, say, 10 Watts of average output power, you would have to design a very linear amplifier that was capable of something like 40 Watts (assuming your coding can get the dynamic range down to 6dB). If your coding is good for 10dB, you would need a 100 watt amplifier to transmit a 10 watt DTV signal. Europe decided on the more expensive approach in favor of providing a better service to its citizens. The US decided on what would make the most profit for the broadcasters.
Each FM station is currently allocated 200kHz of spectrum in the united states. The FM band currently sits between 88 and 108MHz, inclusive. That leaves 99 channels 200kHz wide a piece.
That's a lot of channels
Now, the reason that you can't have 99 radio stations in a given market is because the FCC has established what are called Basic Trade Areas, or BTAs. Each station on a given frequency is assigned a BTA that is determined by running a longley-rice propagation model based on tower height and the effective isotropic radiated power, EIRP. There are 3 classes of FM stations, and each is allowed a certain tower height and a certain EIRP. Once the propagation model is run, it is overlaid with the US Census Bureau's population density models to determine how many people that FM station will cover. Once that FM station is given its BTA with so many recipients, any new station that applies for a construction permit, REGARDLESS OF THE FREQUENCY OR LOCATION, must PROVE that it will not interfere with that stations BTA, if the propagation model run on that proposed station shows at all that it will be throwing power into the established station's BTA in a manner that will reduce the number of people who can receive the established station. Due to the nasty nature of reactance modulated radio (FM), there is a high potential for intermodulation distortion, third order products, and many other nasty phenomena that will cause interference to desired stations. The capture effect of FM can mitigate this to some degree, and this effect is precisely the reason FM was chosen for its band.
Herein lies a problem with massive digital broadcasting. Sure, if you chose a datarate, say 128kbps, and used digital modulation such a QPSK, 16QAM, or some other amplitude/phase modulated signal, you would use less spectrum, but you have to be MUCH more careful about interference and signal to noise ratio. FM does not require a huge S/N ratio to work, and it only has to be about 3dB above an on-frequency interferer for the capture effect to fix the problem. However, digital modulation methods aren't so immune. In the case of something like 256QAM, the symbols are very close to each other in magnatude and phase, so it doesn't take much noise to corrupt a symbol.
It should also be noted that the FCC has settled on an amplitude modulated method (8VSB) for DTV in the US while Europe uses COFDM, which is a lot more like FM (because it's orthogonal, COFDM has much less intersymbol interference). I'm aware of tests run by a consulting firm in the DC area that showed conclusively that COFDM was the better choice over 8VSB. FM is also used for the audio subcarrier in analog television.
So, the moral of the story is, you can't just have more....:)
Actually, I thought that in order to receive a patent, one had to demonstrate the intent to use that information to contribute in a meaningful way to the economy...
I'm actually setting up a message-board type website (so long as I'm not infringing on someone's patent, I'm sure I'll be sued if I am).... I could create a forum like that (so long as that idea, too, has not been patented)...
Slashdot Mirror
Blue has a shorter wavelength than red.
The reason red LEDs are used is because they are the cheapest, as longer wavelength bandgap devices are easier to make.
The exception to this logic is infrared, since LEDs are typically used for visual indication. Infrared LEDs are useless for this purpose so manufacturers don't make nearly as many of them...
implicit none
.gt. speed_base) then
integer i*4
real computer_speed
real adequate
real speed_base
do while(1)
call adequate(speed_base)
if (computer_speed
do i = 1,1E9
enddo
endif
enddo
The real world scoop on this is that someone typing a document in OpenOffice or surfing the internet won't see any performance increase over a Pentium-II 233 MHz machine with 64MB of 60ns RAM. Gamers might get 46 gajillion frames per second instead of 42 gajillion frames per second, which is completely indistinguishable to humans, so they won't notice either
I, on the other hand, might see a simulation of a 5250-node electromagnetic scattering problem take 36 hours instead of 39 hours, which is quite significant. But, I would probably get the same increase in performance by going through and cleaning up my code a little. FORTRAN is funny that way...
Making computers faster to the nth power only makes code that's worse to the n+1th power :)
Is there enough momentum in that laser to actually change the velocity of a flying windows license appreciably enough to make it miss (assuming it's on a collision course - after all - it might blue-screen before it hits Earth and stop say, 62 miles from impact).
The only thing this laser deflection system might buy us is instead of being annihilated by a really fast, frozen rock from outer space, we're annihilated by a piping hot rock from outer space that turns the Atlantic Ocean into a giant thingie of Jiffy-Pop before we all are vaporized, or have our guts ripped out.
Funny how energy expended always seems to come back and bite us in the proverbial arse... How many more movie references can I cram into this post?
The reason there are three clear channels is just in case someone wants to set up a cellular network of 802.11b access points. While you do need 6 channels for the standard hexagonal cellular spectrum re-use plan, a lot can be done with just three.
As for interference with 2.4GHz phones, there's no reason to assume that an access point will comlpetely wipe out a cordless phone. The ISM band runs from 2400 to 2483MHz, inclusive, and neither a cordless phone nor an access point will use anywhere near all of this spectrum.
There _are_ obvious implications if everyone goes out and puts a long-haul access point on their roof. The band WILL get crowded and bad things could happen. We'll just have to see how fubar this gets and just wait for the FCC to either start licensing access points (for a hefty fee, of course) or just start pushing everyone to other spectrum like U-NII (5.3, 5.8GHz). The market is sort of going that way anyway.
A 1 watt amplifier with a 6dBi Antenna get's you your +36dBm, while a 1 watt amp with an 18dBi antenna gets you +48dBm. This is why antennae come in convenient sizes of 6dBi, 12dBi, and 18dBi. Combinations of these gains with +24, +27, and +30dBm amplifiers get you to the limits.
802.11b amplifiers and antennae are NOT, I reapeat, NOT illegal. There are certain hoops that you have to jump through, but there's nothing illegal about building a system with amps and antennae. There are no filing requirements, no licensing requirements, or anything. You just have to use certified equipment. Certified equipment consists of a combination of an Access Point, an Amplifier, and an Antenna, and all interconnecting transmission lines, that have, together as a system, been certified to be compliant with FCC rules for the unlicensed spectrum. Of course, such systems cost several times what you can buy COTS (commercial, off the shelf) stuff for, because having equipment certified is not an easy nor inexpensive task.
You may ask why you can't just stick an antenna on your access point. You can, but you have to be aware that you're only changing the receiving antenna. It is against the law for a consumer product to give the consumer access to change the transmitting antenna. The antenna either has to use a fixed, non-removable proprietary connector (reverse SMA, reverse TNC, or other connector that you can't just buy at radio shack), or have an antenna that cannot be removed at all.
For example, look at the D-link 900AP+. It has a single, removable antenna on the rear. If you open one up, you'll actually see two transmission lines connected to the radio card. One of these goes to the rear jack and the other to an electrically short antenna inside the case. This short antenna is the transmitting antenna, which is compliant with the rules because the consumer cannot readily change it.
Also, because these things use separate transmitting and receiving antennae, you'd have to put TWO antennae on the roof if you wanted a longer haul 802.11 system. It wouldn't be enough to simply boost your transmitter EIRP, you'd have to have bigger ears to hear a little laptop that was far away.
An EULA is very different. You have the right to terminate an EULA any time you wish and to be no longer bound by its requirements. You do not have the right to terminate a constitutionally sound law - you are always bound by its requirements, regardless of whether you agreed with it in the first place.
You must have forgotten that we live in a Republic, not a Democracy. The people have no real power whatsoever. Even if the people voted to repeal internet taxation, the politicians are under no obligation whatsoever to obey the vote. It's not really any different than a presidential election in which the Electors are under no obligation to cast their votes for the candidate that wins the popular election in a given state.
The *real* reason that internet taxation is wrong goes Way Way Back(TM) to our childhood in which we were usually taught that if we didn't have money to buy something, we couldn't buy it. The government has tried several ways to increase revenue.
First, during the Civil War, the government enacted the Bureau of Internal Revenue. This was a very small amount compared to excise taxes and tariff duties (the old way of doing it). The first self-expanding perpetual bureaucracy is born. Read more about the Civil War Bureau of Internal Revenue Here... And a way-way-cool tax history museum...
During the Johnson administration, the gubment took money off the gold standard and just printed as much as it needed to cover its spending programs. This ridiculous endeavor led to the hyper-inflation of the 70's and the 99.9% top incremental income tax bracket during the Carter administration, and the double-digit interest rates going into the 80's. It's amazing to me that the government didn't learn during this time that raising taxes does not increase revenue for the gubment - IT LOWERS IT because of the burden it places on the economy. People have less money to spend, so there are fewer sales, fewer profits, lower salaries, and LESS INCOME TO TAX. But, I digress...
Enter Reaganomics - now, whatever you learned in your left-wing democratic union-controlled public school about Reagan and his economic policies was blatantly incorrect. When Reagan took office in 1981, the government's purse had 18 bullet holes in it and was leaking money like a sieve. Our great country was spiraling almost inexorably toward bankruptcy, and we came very close to defaulting on a round or two of long term bonds. The fact is that after the gigantic tax cuts in the early 80's, IRS revenue INCREASED. That's right, cutting taxes INCREASED revenue for the government. *shock*
"but, but, but, what about the deficit?" - okay, the deficit was caused by Harry Truman. Yes, the deficit spending in the 80's was mainly due to the Truman Doctrine, which required the US to fight the spread of communism throughout the world. There was this little country east of Europe, called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, that had at some point in history developed nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and was on the rampage. Since WWII, they had already installed their communist regimes in most of eastern Europe and were pushing west. The Arms Race was a very necessary evil, and as much as I hate to say it, we had to win the cold war no matter what. Combine that with an unchecked social welfare program that was often corrupt and abused, and we were suddenly saddled with mind boggling debt.
Here's a little perspective on the debt: if you were to pave a 12' wide road with one billion one dollar bills, you would have a road long enough to drive 252,000 miles, about the distance to the moon. If you were to pave a road with the national debt's worth of one dollar bills, you could drive 1.5 million miles. However, there isn't enough cotton on earth to make that many one dollar bills. (FYI all US currency bills are 6.14" x 2.61" and weigh approximately one gram per note, regardless of denomination).
The point here is in agreement with yours that the government is stupid when it comes to fiscal management. When their budget runs over, they just raise more taxes to pay for it. They don't care about the long term effects because there's no accountability. The worst that can happen is that they'll either get "voted" out of office or hit their term limit. But, nothing they do while in office will usually have a negative effect until they're long gone..
We need a balanced budget LAW, just just some sissy amendment that can be changed and re-written to suit the convenience of the politicians, but something that is irrevokable, unmodifiable, and carries the status of a high crime. IN fact, I can write it right now, and IANEAL:
"It shall be a high crime against the United States for any individual or group of individuals to cause a government agency to spend more money than it receives."
"It shall be a high crime against the United States for any individual or group of individuals to cause the amount of money a government agency receives to increase at an annual rate that is higher than the sum of the rate of inflation and the rate of growth of the Gross Domestic Product."
We owe it to ourselves (literally!) to pay down the national debt. Every bond you buy from the government represents money borrowed by the government, from you, to spend on $4000 toilet seats, private jets, politicians' vacations around the world, and let's not forget the $58,000 486 machines that the government is probably still buying.
Some other interesting government links:
The Bureau of Engraving and Printing
All About our Tax System
All About our Tax System, the government's version of the truth
The United States Mint
The Social "Security" Administration
2) Access to information. You agree that we (ACME Worm Co.) will need periodic and/or continuous access to your computer for the purpose of sending unsolicited commercial email. You grant us unlimited irrevokable privelege to access your Microsoft Outlook(TM) address book for this purpose. You agree to hold us harmless for any ill effects this may have on your reputation or financial status or social standing in your community.
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I know this is a lie - HP would never do any maintenance on a customer's equipment, whether or not they were paid to do it :)
No thanks...
Yes, there are 4,184 or so joules in a nutritional calorie, which is 1000 energy calories. Waiting for my 20 seconds to expire.........
and so on, so as you can see, conversion to SI in America wouldn't be worth the trouble...
How do you know they haven't? :)
Are we Humans? or are we an E.T. colony? :)
5:30am and the coffee hasn't kicked in yet
"Method and procedure for the dismantling of civilized society by exclusive diversion with legistative processes" (making people so busy defending themselves against lawsuits to do anything productive)
"Method and apparatus for the production of intellectual property and information by means of the exercise of a passive or active electromechanical or electronic relay causing the dissipation of energy in various ceramic, plastic, semiconductor, or organic elements, causing the semi-permanent organization of atomic or subatomic particles on a dielectric, metallic, organic, semiconductor, ceramic, or plasticine substrate, also causing the luminescence of phosphorescent or electronic optoelectrical or optoelectronic elements." (use of computer)
Sorry I couldn't get any more vague than that.
You walk into a store and buy something. That is NO DIFFERENT than going on the web and buying something. There's no patent to be had there. There's nothing novel about shopping online. There was catalog shopping with phone-ordering for YEARS before these idiots started giving patents to "online e-business."
My patent is still pending on "Method and Apparatus for facilitating the converstion of energy by interchange of gases in an organic membraneous environment" (remaining alive by breathing)
But, to address Hollywood's point, piracy is illegal, as in against the law. It is stealing, regardless of the excuse. I listen to the constant droan from the 'net community that "if they weren't so expensive, we wouldn't have to steal." .... "have to" steal? Nobody makes you steal - and stealing that movie does not make it cheaper, it makes it more expensive.
Even if you go to best buy, you can routinely pick up DVDs of new movies for less than $20 on sale. Twenty bucks, and you can watch the movie as often as you want. For movies you don't like that much, pay the $4 to rent it. If you think it's too expensive, don't buy it and write a letter to the producers saying that you think they're too expensive. Movie prices aren't arbitrary, you know. The price of everything is based on what the marketeers think people are willing to pay. If you tell them you aren't willing to pay X, they'll surely make note of it.
All you're accomplishing by stealing is punishing us law-abiding citizens. What do you think inspired the DMCA? Do you really think that the DMCA would be a reality today if piracy (again, theft, as in stealing) weren't such a big problem? If someone were to steal your paycheck, you'd be furious. If someone were to steal your paycheck every time you got paid, you'd be out for blood.
Disclaimer: I don't work for the movie industry, the MPAA, RIAA, or anyone else that has any material involvement in cinematic entertainment.
I don't think there's enough SonicBlue stock out there to buy shelf space at Wal-Mart(TM).
Now that I think about it, this may have been an absolutely BRILLIANT move on the part of the RIAA sock-it-to-you-legal team. Now universities, many of which may very well be being crushed under the 300-lb router, may be forced to either comply with their demands, or at the very least lend credibility to their argument.
Deep down, the RIAA knows that it has absolutely no hope of forcing this upon universities, which is why these letters are absent any cease and desist language. They're just going to run it up the flagpole and see who looks.
The final word should be here that it is the job of the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to enforce Federal law. No other entity, whether state or local, has the jurisdiction nor obligation to enforce the CFR. If distributing copyrighted material is a federal crime, then it's the justice deparment, and no one else, who has the power to indict. Civilly, I find it hard to believe that the RIAA would be able to prove that distributing a song cost them any money. What downloader is going to take the stand and testify that he/she would have bought the CD had they not been able to download it? I sure wouldn't. In fact, I would testify that the ability to "try before you buy" has led to my purchasing several CDs that I normally would not have even known about, let alone bought.
Every single Borders bookstore allows you to listen to a CD, in CD quality, and in its entirety, without any inhibitions, before you buy it. Does that not constitute illegal distribution, i.e. allowing someone to listed to copyrighted music without paying? Why isn't Borders being served? How is this different than P2P, save the portability of the music?
Interstation interference is effectively solved in broadcasting by dividing the regions into BTAs and separating frequencies by BTA.
This is precisely what the FCC does, except BTAs are much more scientifically determined. Cell phone networks are designed for continuous coverage with as few holes as possible. BTAs are designed to guarantee a station can cover X number of people while at the same time PREVENTING a broadcaster from encroaching on the boundary of another stations BTA (on the same channel).
One more technical (and speculative) answer is this: COFDM, since it requires a lower signal to noise ratio, can cover a greater range than AM (8VSB) can, given the same power. Therefore, with moderate amounts of power, it would be more likely for a DTV station to intrude into another station's BTA. So, rather than use less power, it was decided to simply keep the lesser capable modulation standard and not require the hundreds of stations on the air to replace their equipment.
Another more sound technical answer is this: in OFDM, Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing, there exists the possibilty to have a very high dynamic range in the signal. That is, the strength of the strongest signal versus the strength of the weakest signal. So, if you wanted, say, 10 Watts of average output power, you would have to design a very linear amplifier that was capable of something like 40 Watts (assuming your coding can get the dynamic range down to 6dB). If your coding is good for 10dB, you would need a 100 watt amplifier to transmit a 10 watt DTV signal. Europe decided on the more expensive approach in favor of providing a better service to its citizens. The US decided on what would make the most profit for the broadcasters.
Hope this helps.
That's a lot of channels
Now, the reason that you can't have 99 radio stations in a given market is because the FCC has established what are called Basic Trade Areas, or BTAs. Each station on a given frequency is assigned a BTA that is determined by running a longley-rice propagation model based on tower height and the effective isotropic radiated power, EIRP. There are 3 classes of FM stations, and each is allowed a certain tower height and a certain EIRP. Once the propagation model is run, it is overlaid with the US Census Bureau's population density models to determine how many people that FM station will cover. Once that FM station is given its BTA with so many recipients, any new station that applies for a construction permit, REGARDLESS OF THE FREQUENCY OR LOCATION, must PROVE that it will not interfere with that stations BTA, if the propagation model run on that proposed station shows at all that it will be throwing power into the established station's BTA in a manner that will reduce the number of people who can receive the established station. Due to the nasty nature of reactance modulated radio (FM), there is a high potential for intermodulation distortion, third order products, and many other nasty phenomena that will cause interference to desired stations. The capture effect of FM can mitigate this to some degree, and this effect is precisely the reason FM was chosen for its band.
Herein lies a problem with massive digital broadcasting. Sure, if you chose a datarate, say 128kbps, and used digital modulation such a QPSK, 16QAM, or some other amplitude/phase modulated signal, you would use less spectrum, but you have to be MUCH more careful about interference and signal to noise ratio. FM does not require a huge S/N ratio to work, and it only has to be about 3dB above an on-frequency interferer for the capture effect to fix the problem. However, digital modulation methods aren't so immune. In the case of something like 256QAM, the symbols are very close to each other in magnatude and phase, so it doesn't take much noise to corrupt a symbol.
It should also be noted that the FCC has settled on an amplitude modulated method (8VSB) for DTV in the US while Europe uses COFDM, which is a lot more like FM (because it's orthogonal, COFDM has much less intersymbol interference). I'm aware of tests run by a consulting firm in the DC area that showed conclusively that COFDM was the better choice over 8VSB. FM is also used for the audio subcarrier in analog television.
So, the moral of the story is, you can't just have more.... :)
But, ICBW.
I'm actually setting up a message-board type website (so long as I'm not infringing on someone's patent, I'm sure I'll be sued if I am).... I could create a forum like that (so long as that idea, too, has not been patented)...