There are many LEO satellites (notably, Iridium sats in polar orbits and GlobalStar sats in various inclined orbits) that provide internet access for non-equatorial regions.* Granted, speeds are 1200bps to 9600bps and it will be horrendously expensive (around $1.60 per minute last I checked), but it can be done and often is done on oceangoing ships large and small for sending GPS telemetry back home and also so the crew can email their landlubber friends.
Now, for *broadband* satellite internet, AFIAK you are limited to geostationary satellites around the equator. Bill Gates' Teledesic broadband internet-via-satellite venture, which would have been LEO, fell flat on it's face and I am not aware of any alternatives. I suppose you could buy four or eight Iridum phones (at $1,000 a pop) and gang them together into some kind of Frankenstein dialup-speed connection. I hope you are rich or you'll soon be decalaring bankruptcy!!
* Granted, GlobalStar does not cover the poles very well. IIRC there is also Inmarsat, but I'm not sure if they do data?
Yep -- with 802.11b linking neighbors to neighbors across the country, you can create a "people's internet", something not subject to any central authority. Hopefully, such a network would thrive with a cathedral-and-bazaar philosphy, and not choke in it's own vomit with a tragedy-of-the-commons philosphy.
Then again, considering the way that the current internet has gone, a people's internet is probably doomed from the start.
Isn't this the way that Google improves search results and updates PageRank etc? By tracking which links get clicked?
If Google didn't track anything, their search algorythms would probably be a lot less efficient because they wouldn't be able to tell which of the search results were the ones that users found relevent.
"the AC delivered over power lines in the UK operates at a different frequency"
Household power is 60 cycles per second in the US, 50 in the UK; so, not much of a difference. Of course, I have no idea if the overhead transmission wires also use those same frequencies.
For comparison, the radio frequency bands begin a lot higher, about 530,000 cycles per second (530KHz) for the AM broadcast band.
You don't even need to do that. Check out FAR (Federal Aviation Rule) 103. As long as your craft does not weigh more than 254 pounds and cannot go faster than 55 knots or carry more than 5 gallons of fuel, you are good to go (except over populated areas, restricted airspace, or above any cloud cover). Legally, you need no training or certification for this type of 'ultralight' aircraft.
Hmm, maybe FAR 103 does not apply to lighter-than-air craft... eh, I'm too lazy to look it up.
MIME encoding. Your binary attachment is made up of 8-bit bytes. The mail server will only accept 7-bit bytes, so your client must use 7-bit MIME encoding. Theoretically, this would make your attachment 1/8th larger but due to other various inefficiencies, it can become over 20% larger.
Also, 20MB is actually 20,971,520 bytes (20 * 1024 * 1024) so that makes things confusing too.
Unfortunately, I have read one of the books. There are a few things in HP that adults can appreciate, but the oversimplified plot and cardboard characters held pretty much zero interest for me (as an adult). I sometimes wonder if the adults that enjoy these books have not yet been exposed to real fantasy. I base this suspicion on the fact that most of the adults that I know who have read the HP books, previously never read any books at all. It's good thing to encourage more adults to read, I suppose, but there are so many other books out there that are so much better.
If you want a real fantasy series, check out Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' series or Roger Zelazny's 'Amber' series. And if you want a fantasy series so adult it's depressing (but riveting nonetheless), you can also try George RR Martin's 'Song of Fire and Ice' series. JK Rowlings can't hold a magical candle to any of these authors.
"See, your engine is extremely efficient in an RPM band - around the torque peak"
BTW, most car owners manuals list the maximum torque at a specified rpm (usually right next to the rated horsepower). This is the rpm you should shoot for, for best fuel economy. Kinda tough when you don't have a tachometer, but if you know your gear ratios and final drive ratio (usually available from a repair manual), you can calculate it pretty close.
"My peak gas mileage is in the mid-40s, in the peak of the previous gear (if I lock it into 3rd via the shift lock)"
It seems illogical that a higher rpm can give better fuel mileage, but yep, it does in some cases depending on your gearing and engine powerband. However, when you are in a lower gear you are accelerating the wear in your engine, so it's not a perfect world.
Actually, a lot of reloaders get scrap lead for free (wheel weights from tire shops), and melt it down to cast their own bullets (a little tin and/or antimony is added for hardness). Check any reloading catalog or website, the equipment is not expensive and is readily available.
Could be worse. Back in the DOS/WordPerfect 5.1 days, I saw someone hold down the spacebar at the end of every line until the cursor wrapped to the next line. When he later went to remove or insert a word in the middle of things, it looked like some kind of virus had taken over the screen.
Gyroscopes are excellent for attitude control. They can be used to rotate a spacecraft around the X, Y, and Z axises. Gyroscopes cannot, however, be used to impart linear velocity to a mass (unless it is detached), so they can't be used to change the orbit of a spacecraft. Which is why the ISS needs a capsule to dock and boost its orbit, rather than simply bringing a few gyroscopes on board.
You: "Reconnaissance satellites are steerable"
Me: "How can a satellite steer its orbit"
You: "Obviously a satellite can't"
You: "it's done wth gyroscopes"
You seem to be contradicting yourself there. First you assert that they are steeable, and now you are saying they are not. Then you go on to say that they are steerable with gyroscopes. Which is it? I guess "thinks" are still "confuzzled".
Well then, educate me please. How can a satellite steer its orbit and arrive at a certain point over the earth within an hour? How many times can it do this before it runs out of fuel?
"Reconnaissance satellites are steerable...to be over a specific point"
Can you post some sources backing this claim? Satellites are highly unlikely to be capable of being steered to a specific point over the globe. Satellites have very limited room for propellant/reaction fuel. You could only change a satellite's orbit, a little bit, a few times, before running out of fuel.
A satellite's orbit is mostly determined by it's launch trajectory. The fuel required to significantly change its orbit would be enormous -- a radically different orbit would require more fuel than it took to get the satellite off the ground in the first place. The ISS can't even carry enough fuel to boost it's own orbit, and it has way more room for spare fuel than a spy satellite.
Now, you may be able to steer the angle that the camera is looking at, but I highly doubt the entire satellite can alter its orbit, significantly, more than a handful of times. Most satellites have only enough fuel for attitude control, and even that tends to run out after a few years.
Again, if you can post some sources supporting your claims, I will gladly admit that I am wrong. But it seems awfully unlikely to me.
Slashdot Mirror
Not that I'm bitter or anything, but I submitted a story about OTEC to /. over a year ago and it was rejected.
Hmmm. The bumper sticker I'm familiar with goes:
"Guns kill people, just like spoons made Rosie O'Donnel fat."
There are many LEO satellites (notably, Iridium sats in polar orbits and GlobalStar sats in various inclined orbits) that provide internet access for non-equatorial regions.* Granted, speeds are 1200bps to 9600bps and it will be horrendously expensive (around $1.60 per minute last I checked), but it can be done and often is done on oceangoing ships large and small for sending GPS telemetry back home and also so the crew can email their landlubber friends.
Now, for *broadband* satellite internet, AFIAK you are limited to geostationary satellites around the equator. Bill Gates' Teledesic broadband internet-via-satellite venture, which would have been LEO, fell flat on it's face and I am not aware of any alternatives. I suppose you could buy four or eight Iridum phones (at $1,000 a pop) and gang them together into some kind of Frankenstein dialup-speed connection. I hope you are rich or you'll soon be decalaring bankruptcy!!
* Granted, GlobalStar does not cover the poles very well. IIRC there is also Inmarsat, but I'm not sure if they do data?
"and let us start anew"
Yep -- with 802.11b linking neighbors to neighbors across the country, you can create a "people's internet", something not subject to any central authority. Hopefully, such a network would thrive with a cathedral-and-bazaar philosphy, and not choke in it's own vomit with a tragedy-of-the-commons philosphy.
Then again, considering the way that the current internet has gone, a people's internet is probably doomed from the start.
"Deutsche Telekom tentacle T-Online faces similar threats"
Tentacle?! The rest of the article has pretty good english, so I'm puzzled by this odd interjection of what appears to be machine translation.
Isn't this the way that Google improves search results and updates PageRank etc? By tracking which links get clicked?
If Google didn't track anything, their search algorythms would probably be a lot less efficient because they wouldn't be able to tell which of the search results were the ones that users found relevent.
"What they're offering right now is rather underwhelming and far behind My Yahoo"
/shudders
You say that like it's a bad thing. I hope Google never gets cluttered up with crap like the abomination that (My) Yahoo has become.
Which is still nothing compared to MSN...
"the AC delivered over power lines in the UK operates at a different frequency"
Household power is 60 cycles per second in the US, 50 in the UK; so, not much of a difference. Of course, I have no idea if the overhead transmission wires also use those same frequencies.
For comparison, the radio frequency bands begin a lot higher, about 530,000 cycles per second (530KHz) for the AM broadcast band.
"and get the FCC to certify your lawn chair"
You don't even need to do that. Check out FAR (Federal Aviation Rule) 103. As long as your craft does not weigh more than 254 pounds and cannot go faster than 55 knots or carry more than 5 gallons of fuel, you are good to go (except over populated areas, restricted airspace, or above any cloud cover). Legally, you need no training or certification for this type of 'ultralight' aircraft.
Hmm, maybe FAR 103 does not apply to lighter-than-air craft... eh, I'm too lazy to look it up.
MIME encoding. Your binary attachment is made up of 8-bit bytes. The mail server will only accept 7-bit bytes, so your client must use 7-bit MIME encoding. Theoretically, this would make your attachment 1/8th larger but due to other various inefficiencies, it can become over 20% larger.
Also, 20MB is actually 20,971,520 bytes (20 * 1024 * 1024) so that makes things confusing too.
"They are not solely for kids."
Unfortunately, I have read one of the books. There are a few things in HP that adults can appreciate, but the oversimplified plot and cardboard characters held pretty much zero interest for me (as an adult). I sometimes wonder if the adults that enjoy these books have not yet been exposed to real fantasy. I base this suspicion on the fact that most of the adults that I know who have read the HP books, previously never read any books at all. It's good thing to encourage more adults to read, I suppose, but there are so many other books out there that are so much better.
If you want a real fantasy series, check out Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' series or Roger Zelazny's 'Amber' series. And if you want a fantasy series so adult it's depressing (but riveting nonetheless), you can also try George RR Martin's 'Song of Fire and Ice' series. JK Rowlings can't hold a magical candle to any of these authors.
"communicators seem to have megawatt transmission power"
And these days people complain about a couple watts coming from their cell phone... just imagine a megawatt boiling your brain.
"See, your engine is extremely efficient in an RPM band - around the torque peak"
BTW, most car owners manuals list the maximum torque at a specified rpm (usually right next to the rated horsepower). This is the rpm you should shoot for, for best fuel economy. Kinda tough when you don't have a tachometer, but if you know your gear ratios and final drive ratio (usually available from a repair manual), you can calculate it pretty close.
"My peak gas mileage is in the mid-40s, in the peak of the previous gear (if I lock it into 3rd via the shift lock)"
It seems illogical that a higher rpm can give better fuel mileage, but yep, it does in some cases depending on your gearing and engine powerband. However, when you are in a lower gear you are accelerating the wear in your engine, so it's not a perfect world.
"Tort reform anyone?"
Yes, please. This sort of thing is hardly new. The aquaria community was rocked by a similiar debacle not too long ago:
http://www.libn.com/Column_details.cfm?ID=1249
"I don't think a needle gun would be very effective"
Excellent, then you won't mind being a live target for this new needle gun I'm testing?
"bluuet"
That should be "bullet". I know I suck.
"when you buy a batch, so they could track those"
7 6966&highlight=laser+bullets.
Actually, a lot of reloaders get scrap lead for free (wheel weights from tire shops), and melt it down to cast their own bullets (a little tin and/or antimony is added for hardness). Check any reloading catalog or website, the equipment is not expensive and is readily available.
Anyway, this whole bluuet-tagging topic has already been discussed to death here: http://glocktalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3
"As opposed to GlobalStar?"
Touche.
"Gotta love the US military for spending money like that."
;)
Well, you could hardly call it a "Global" Positioning System if it wasn't really global.
You appear to be correct, from the very bottom of this page: http://www.skycallcommunications.com/Coverage.html
Could be worse. Back in the DOS/WordPerfect 5.1 days, I saw someone hold down the spacebar at the end of every line until the cursor wrapped to the next line. When he later went to remove or insert a word in the middle of things, it looked like some kind of virus had taken over the screen.
"actual popcorn salt"
I had to Google it, but apparently an extra-fine grained salt is used on popcorn, potato chips, and french fries.
Just in case anyone else wondered.
Gyroscopes are excellent for attitude control. They can be used to rotate a spacecraft around the X, Y, and Z axises. Gyroscopes cannot, however, be used to impart linear velocity to a mass (unless it is detached), so they can't be used to change the orbit of a spacecraft. Which is why the ISS needs a capsule to dock and boost its orbit, rather than simply bringing a few gyroscopes on board.
You: "Reconnaissance satellites are steerable"
Me: "How can a satellite steer its orbit"
You: "Obviously a satellite can't"
You: "it's done wth gyroscopes"
You seem to be contradicting yourself there. First you assert that they are steeable, and now you are saying they are not. Then you go on to say that they are steerable with gyroscopes. Which is it? I guess "thinks" are still "confuzzled".
"I simply stated the facts"
Well then, educate me please. How can a satellite steer its orbit and arrive at a certain point over the earth within an hour? How many times can it do this before it runs out of fuel?
"Reconnaissance satellites are steerable...to be over a specific point"
Can you post some sources backing this claim? Satellites are highly unlikely to be capable of being steered to a specific point over the globe. Satellites have very limited room for propellant/reaction fuel. You could only change a satellite's orbit, a little bit, a few times, before running out of fuel.
A satellite's orbit is mostly determined by it's launch trajectory. The fuel required to significantly change its orbit would be enormous -- a radically different orbit would require more fuel than it took to get the satellite off the ground in the first place. The ISS can't even carry enough fuel to boost it's own orbit, and it has way more room for spare fuel than a spy satellite.
Now, you may be able to steer the angle that the camera is looking at, but I highly doubt the entire satellite can alter its orbit, significantly, more than a handful of times. Most satellites have only enough fuel for attitude control, and even that tends to run out after a few years.
Again, if you can post some sources supporting your claims, I will gladly admit that I am wrong. But it seems awfully unlikely to me.