Sony invested quite a bit into their ATRAC format in terms of R&D. True, the higher compression ATRAC3 sounds crappy, but the original ATRAC actually does sound decent, better when compared to low-sample rate MP3 (128k or so). The main selling point for this compression (from what Ive read in researching ATRAC and Minidisc) is they split the waveform into high/mid/low frequency bands, and compress each at a different rate. Since high-frequency requires more bandwidth to retain detail, it gets more, while lowend gets less. Wiki has more, and I cant find it right now, but there are sony documents out there that are much more detailed..
Anyway, my main concern and the reason I am not going to buy another minidisc player (I currently own and enjoy an older model, MZ-R70), or any Sony recorder similar is because of the DRM implemented by Sony. Basically, you can put whatever you want to into the thing digitally or analog, but you can only output analog via line-out or headphones. While it might not sound like much of an issue, one thing these devices are actually good at is recording live audio. They are small and discreet enough (more so than most hard-drive media players that can record, and much less expensive than a DAT) to record without being noticed, and do so with good sound quality. However, once you get the good-quality recording into it, the only way to get it out is by the analog output, at 1x play speed. The next portable I will buy will be a harddrive based audio/video recorder that does NOT limit input/output by DRM.
Its known as a strategic weapon. Meaning, the people behind the button to launch them dont really want to use them either, but still have the capability to, and can therefore make threats and demands based on that. Just like all the nuclear weapons stockpiled in both the US and USSR during the cold war, none were ever launched, but they all were "used", mainly as a deterrant against the other side. If they ever DO get launched, it becomes "well, we warned you, but you didnt listen, so its your own fault", as in the case of WWII.
If the competitor uses the same signaling technology (GSM vs CDMA vs PCS vs old analog stuff) or signaling your phone can use, and you have a "no roaming fee" type plan, it wouldnt matter anyways.
As for working towards a standard and busy networks... thats what signaling standards ARE. Of the many companies out there, they all use one of the standard signaling specs. Sprint for instance, uses PCS, which is one reason a phone purchased for use on the Sprint network will only work on the sprint network (or roam on analog if the phone is capable).
Each carrier is also assigned a peice of the Spectrum by the FCC. This spectrum has a limit to how many cellphones can be used in any given area. Making it so that all companies use the same signaling would not change that limit, and only serve to allow more people to roam onto other networks (as all the phones would be compatable with all networks). To reduce a busy network, they have to build more sites per geographic area, but to have more sites in an area means they have to be closer together, which means signal strength has to be reduced so it doesn overlap another area on the same piece of spectrum (freq's in the slice of spectrum are reused over and over, but only where they wont interfere with another site of the same freq, similar to FM/AM radio stations). Reduced signal strength means some areas are more likely to not get reception they would from a stronger signal source, but more areas would be closer to A source.
Building out a wider coverage area is pure economics. Why have cell reception in an area where 3 people might use it twice a week? If it costs $xhundred thousand to put up a tower, what is the actual return on that investment? Older providers such as ATT have the advantage as they deployed far-reaching coverage areas early on in the analog days, and simply converted most of those sites to digital. Newer providers such as Sprint started by building up the areas most likely to use the service the most, in Sprint's case, major metro areas and Interstate Highways. As the market matures, coverage is expanding, but simple economics controls that expansion. The only thing a company would gain by putting a tower in the middle of nowhere is to coverup a spot on their coverage map that would otherwise appear blank, basically a selling point along the lines of "we have service wherever you are" or "can you hear me now". 99% of the places I go, I have service. Of the 1% I dont have service, its to places where I wouldnt really need a phone, and where I still get a strong enough analog signal to place a 911 call if needed (only reason I take my phone out biking/camping/etc).
No, a phone number is much like an IP address, in that to move the number to a different localized network requires an announcement to the rest of the networks. For phones, this is done via NPAC (national Number Portability Administration Center) and NeuStar services, for IP's its BGP. Phone numbers can only be re-located within the same Rate Center, as changing the rate center would change the billing and routing of the line. IPs can be re-located only within a network that already has an assignment for those IPs parent network, otherwise special case routing and probably billing would have to be added.
DNS, otoh, is more like CallerID or an entry in a phone book. You can have one name assigned to many phone numbers, and if you have to change your number, you can keep your name no matter what. The process used to implement caller ID is very similar to DNS as well. Your phone company looks up the name associated with the inbound number in via DIPS, basically a database lookup, similar to dns lookup.
Doesnt mean its safe... specially at high pressures like what would be required to launch those heavy (5lbs+ for some) shells that high in the air. Of course, another use of compressed air thats not so safe, especially mixed with alcohol.
Yeh...great place. Visited the online store many times, then when I finally decided to go there (the store front wasn't exactly the most friendly looking place, with the massive chain-link fence around it) it had closed. Ohwell, they had a bunch of neat T-shirts and stuff, along with many distro's and would even build you a computer specifically for linux (iirc). Was also right across the way from Ga Tech. Think the biggest issue was lack of publicity and that they weren't exactly in the best part of town to attract customers. If they were still here I would most deffinately be a customer.. while I was a student I was just too poor.
What I wonder is if this sort of thing actually qualifies as a tax write-off. Sure, they are "donating" material goods with some (minimal) value, but they are in reality gaining something in return, as in fullfilling requirements from the court to avoid further penalties. Generally this disqualifies any "donation" as a write-off. If you donate some money to a charity for a raffle ticket with the chance of winning something, that donation is not deductable. I would see this as the same sort of thing, they are donating, but gaining releif from lawsuits. Of course, there are enough holes in our Tax system that that probably doesnt mean anything. I also wonder what value they would claim on the write-off? Surely these old CD's that didnt sell are not worth the MSRP, but it wouldnt supprise me that thats the value claimed on them, even though the RIAA's actuall cost would be a very small fraction of that.
Not quite...it should work on most digital type projectors, and I would assume older 3element CRT style projectors (the ones with the 3 big colored tubes like whats used in older projection big screen TVs). The screen absorbs most light, but reflects a narrow frequency band near the frequency used by the elements. I doubt it would work well with film projectors or slide projectors since they just filter full spectrum light.
As for the submitter...yeh, not a projector rather a screen, probably a brain fart while typing and left off "screen". But if you are going to flame, check your own posting and RTFA before lighting yourself on fire.
Im sorry, but 103 watts (even if thats correct information) is not much. Like you even said, its about the same as 2 50watt bulbs. Thats.103KW (KiloWatt), running 24hrs a day for a month is about 730Hrs, or 75KWH (KW-Hours). At the US avg electric rate of 7cents/KWH (whats used on most appliances) that ammounts to $5 a month. Your air conditioner on the other hand uses quite a bit more power (for a central unit). I dont think any P4 desktop machines require 2phase 30amp breakers with heavy guage power cable to operate. Your stove also produces many times the ammount of waste heat that your PC does. If you are so concerned about the heat it produces heating your house, get a watercooling system and put its radiator outside.
Since the decomposing perxoide produced water and O2, Armadillo is adding methanol (alcohol, commonly used for racing fuel, M85, gasahol etc) to make use of this free oxygen for extra thrust. The temp reched from the decomposing peroxide can get hot enough to ignite the Methanol (and its decomposition by-product of methane gas), although to speed the warmup they are also using a sparkplug to ignite it, and structures in the engine to keep this combustion inside the chamber against its tendancy to flush out with the passing steam. Since its mixed in with the peroxide prior to loading, its considered a mixed-monoprop.
Ok, so Ill bite this flamebait, asbestos suit is on...
I dont know many model rockets powered by Peroxide. I also dont know of many that are capable of going to 131 feet and returning to within 1 foot of their launch point vertically (VTOL), meaning full flight control on takeoff, hover, and landing, and all with the click of a button. This rocket demonstrated the control authority they have now with their vane controlled engine, and their flight control system software. Basically he clicked his mouse, the computer flew the rocket to a pre-determined altitude and returned it to the ground under power.
Sorry, but this is advancement. NASA tried something similar (DC-X/A), but way bigger, took them several years to get it to even take off, and eventually blew it up, all at a much much higher cost ($40mill?). This "Large freakin model rocket" has been developed by a much smaller team, for what Im sure is alot less investment, and proves that their approach to a re-usable rocket can work. This is also their small scale vehicle. They have a larger one using the same technology and systems that they are testing as well. Rather than risk damaging it, they test everything on the smaller one until it works correctly. Read their website (once/. effect wears off), you might actually learn something.
Joel Bleskacek, father: "I was quite angry and I confronted him. I asked him why he was driving so fast during the crowded lunch hour on the sidewalk. He claimed my daughter jumped in front of him."
Sounds like he did stop, but after getting yelled at by the father, probably got back on his segway and left. The article is biased against the segway rider (who really should not have been on the sidewalk), and it would be interesting to hear from witnesses what the father's reaction was. It could be the guy fled in self defense.
This is confusing on many levels. First, how did a person on a Segway out run the police? Second, how many people do you see on a Segway?
Not sure where you are from, but being from a rather larg city (Atlanta) response time from the police for anything short of shots fired or a SERIOUS car accident (ie: fatality) is at least 20 minutes. 20minutes at 10Mph==3.3+mi, which is a big enough radius and long enough time to allow the segway rider to easily evade police, even if they were to start searching immediately. He was probably at home with the segway parked inside long before the police even got to the scene.
Also, from the article:
The SFPD says it expects to be able to quickly track down the suspect by contacting the Segway company, and obtaining a list of San Francisco Segway owners.
So I doubt it will take too long to find the rider.
If you are talking about the local check that the docs tell you to use (tinydns-get or something like that), yes, it stops working after the server has been running for a few mins. However, remote queries should still be working. I experienced the same problem setting it up, but noticed that even though that local app could no longer get a response from tinydns, my windoze machine could.
Which, judging by the pic, it is. Looks like a common sealed lead-acid Gel cell battery. They are common in both 6 and 12 volts and are found in exit signs, children's electric riding toys (aka powerwheels and the like), portable hand held spot lights, UPS's and many other things. I use them as a backup to power my headlamp on long caving trips (as an alternate to the NiMH pack that lasts 1/4 as long but weighs alot less). They dont leak, unless you manage to break the casing and squeeze the gel out of it (which I know one person unfortunate enough to have that happen after a bad fall while caving).
Commercially it is produced by catalyzing Natural Gas. It can also be created by fermenting wood and distilling the results, but that process takes alot more time and material and energy.
NaOH, sodium hydroxide, found in dry form as Lye. Yes, its a strong base, and is found in most drain-uncloging solutions (Liquid plumber, etc). Hence the warnings on the label about not touching the stuff, it will turn your skin and fat into soap. Watch fight club, it gives you insight to the process (though it is a movie, and should be viewed as such). Lye can be obtained by burning wood and taking the pot-ash (the white powdery ash). This is actually the way soap was discovered, people noticed that if they washed their clothes just downstream of where they creamated their dead, the clothes would come clean easier. The wood ash from the fire would mix with the melting fat to make soap, which would get washed into the river by the rain....
CLEC's are already hampered by such practices, even though there are de-regulation laws prohibiting it. Basically, your CLEC orders a local loop from an ILEC. The ILEC has to provide it at the discount rate if idle facilities already exist without excessive new construction being required. The problem is, what "excessive new construction" actually entails is left somewhat to interpretation. What this leads to is that sometimes if the circuit orders that are refused due to "no facilities" or "requires new construction" are re-ordered a slightly different way (as retail), they are turned up in a short enough interval to prove that new construction/no facilities was in fact not a valid reason to reject the order. Circuit maintanence can fall into this category as well. If say, SBC has one of their customer's with a service affecting issue, they tend to be resolved quicker, with less hassle than if it is a CLEC circuit. They also like to play the game of "no trouble found, we will be billing you for this dispatch", after the circuit that was hard-down magically was restored about the same time their tech was out finding "nothing wrong".
Having had the same problem, here is what I did. It resulted in several phone calls and a refund check within 2 days after mailing. Look on your cable internet bill in the fine print for your local franchise authority. Send them a letter detailing your problem and your attempts to get said problem resolved. Send a copy to the address on your bill for comments/concerns, and one to your local BBB office. In all coppies list everyone it is being sent to (ie: "I am sending coppies of this letter to the Franchise Authority, AT&T customer support and the Atlanta office of the Better Buisness Bureau"). Calling customer care and yelling at a tier1 tech will normally get you nowhere fast. After my service was out for 1week and they told me they would fix it asap (this happened when MediaOne changed to AT&T broadband in Atlanta) I called several times for the following week, each time being told my service would be back in a day or two. I also had never recieved my $150 rebate, and my service was out for almost a month. When the letter I sent (via Registered mail, it costs more but the post office keeps a reciept of delivery that can be used as evidence if you proceed with legal action... if you notice, all legal summons and IRS notifications are sent this way as well) was delivered, I got a phone call from someone at AT&T that just asked what my problems were. I told her, she said "ok, we will get that taken care of immediately", asked how much I was owed from my rebates and reimbusement for outtage, and told me a check was on its way. Sure enough, the check got there 2 days later and service was up.
I disagree, as I work for a CLEC that not only is NOT in chapter 11, nor has been, but is actually making a strong headway to profitability (currently all our markets are, but corporate is not quite in the black) and more market expansion. I dont actually know of any CLEC with the funding to attempt last mile local loops (other than the Cable TV/Data providers), as they are prohibitively expensive to run. This was the basis for the de-regulation of the network, via Telecom act of 1996, to allow other CLEC's to lease lines from the ILEC at a fair value. The only thing the ILEC controls is the local loop, basically the transmission equipment from the collo to the curb. All routing, switching and customer prem equipment past the end of the circuit is owned by the CLEC in most cases. Some CLEC's opt to use more of the ILEC's equipment than others, meaning not only do they lease the line, the also lease switching equipment and more, so basically the only difference in service is who the bill comes from and where stuff gets routed. And no, de-reg does not apply strictly to consumer DSL loops and analog, my company deals in T1's (some are delivered as HDSL, but interfaced as T1 via the smartjack) for buisnesses and DS3 backhauls. You are an indirect customer of the ILEC, yes, but what other option do you have? Unless you have cablemodem and phone service over that in your area, or are a broadband over powerline customer, there is no alternative.
Tm
Re:This will have a stronger impact than you think
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SBC CWA Strike Imminent
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· Score: 2, Informative
Very well put, I should have added that CLEC's are not immune from this at all to the original submission. As an employee of another CLEC that depends on SBC for local loops, I can second all your claims of "underhanded" practices. The "no trouble found" and other bogus trouble ticket resolutions led to successful legal action against them to reclaim said charges, as well as fees for doing so in the first place. Since that, things have gotten better, but it still happens. At one install our tech found the NID card (smartjack card) in the slot but not seated. He pushed it in to seat it properly but the circuit still did not come up. Once SBC dispatched, the remote tech actually told me that the companion card in the RT (remote terminal, the big box where a neighborhood usually gets brought together to be sent back to the collo over fewer larger capacity circuits) had to be turned on at the same time as the SmartJack card so they can properly synch, and if the SmartJack is removed, the RT card has to be reset. Basically what he told me is if the end of the circuit looses power, gets reset, or takes enough errors to drop, even if for a second, someone would have to dispatch out and re-sync the RT. Its about like saying, if you unplug an ethernet cable from one computer, you have to go reboot the switch for it to work again.
As for phone service no idea hope it's not as bad as data. There is allwasy VoIP:)
Problem is, VoIP and data run on circuits (local loops) as well. Guess who owns almost all the circuits (voice OR data) in areas run by SBC? Thats right, CLEC's use deregulation to get cicuits at a reasonable price from the ILECs, SBC included. If SBC goes on strike, it affects all Telecomm in SBC's area that use their circuits, not just their service. While other CLECs run their own MUX/Router/Switching equipment and have techs to repair that stuff, anything between their colo cage and the customer is property of SBC (unless someone else happens to own the local loop copper?), and ONLY SBC can play with it without being arrested for tresspassing/tampering with telco equipment/whatever. As an employee of a company that uses SBC circuits in Tx, it will affect us, and we have been told to be prepared in case it happens.
To add to other replys to this comment, yes SBC (formerly SouthWestern Bell, as the article states if you RTFA) serves a big chunk of the US as an ILEC. That means they provide local services to buisneses and people, as in they own the copper and fiber within the city that connects everyone to everyone else in the city, and connect them to long-distance providers to link them to other cities/countries. Something overlooked/not widely known is that most CLECs also use the circuits of the ILEC in their area, as it is extremely expensive (not to mention the red tape of who owns and can use the ezements for the cables along their runs) to run new cables. So this strike not only affects SBC customers, but also affects customers of CLEC's that are effectively customers of SBC since they are using SBC circuits (as is the case of my employer).
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Anyway, my main concern and the reason I am not going to buy another minidisc player (I currently own and enjoy an older model, MZ-R70), or any Sony recorder similar is because of the DRM implemented by Sony. Basically, you can put whatever you want to into the thing digitally or analog, but you can only output analog via line-out or headphones. While it might not sound like much of an issue, one thing these devices are actually good at is recording live audio. They are small and discreet enough (more so than most hard-drive media players that can record, and much less expensive than a DAT) to record without being noticed, and do so with good sound quality. However, once you get the good-quality recording into it, the only way to get it out is by the analog output, at 1x play speed. The next portable I will buy will be a harddrive based audio/video recorder that does NOT limit input/output by DRM.
Tm
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As for working towards a standard and busy networks... thats what signaling standards ARE. Of the many companies out there, they all use one of the standard signaling specs. Sprint for instance, uses PCS, which is one reason a phone purchased for use on the Sprint network will only work on the sprint network (or roam on analog if the phone is capable).
Each carrier is also assigned a peice of the Spectrum by the FCC. This spectrum has a limit to how many cellphones can be used in any given area. Making it so that all companies use the same signaling would not change that limit, and only serve to allow more people to roam onto other networks (as all the phones would be compatable with all networks). To reduce a busy network, they have to build more sites per geographic area, but to have more sites in an area means they have to be closer together, which means signal strength has to be reduced so it doesn overlap another area on the same piece of spectrum (freq's in the slice of spectrum are reused over and over, but only where they wont interfere with another site of the same freq, similar to FM/AM radio stations). Reduced signal strength means some areas are more likely to not get reception they would from a stronger signal source, but more areas would be closer to A source.
Building out a wider coverage area is pure economics. Why have cell reception in an area where 3 people might use it twice a week? If it costs $xhundred thousand to put up a tower, what is the actual return on that investment? Older providers such as ATT have the advantage as they deployed far-reaching coverage areas early on in the analog days, and simply converted most of those sites to digital. Newer providers such as Sprint started by building up the areas most likely to use the service the most, in Sprint's case, major metro areas and Interstate Highways. As the market matures, coverage is expanding, but simple economics controls that expansion. The only thing a company would gain by putting a tower in the middle of nowhere is to coverup a spot on their coverage map that would otherwise appear blank, basically a selling point along the lines of "we have service wherever you are" or "can you hear me now". 99% of the places I go, I have service. Of the 1% I dont have service, its to places where I wouldnt really need a phone, and where I still get a strong enough analog signal to place a 911 call if needed (only reason I take my phone out biking/camping/etc).
Tm
DNS, otoh, is more like CallerID or an entry in a phone book. You can have one name assigned to many phone numbers, and if you have to change your number, you can keep your name no matter what. The process used to implement caller ID is very similar to DNS as well. Your phone company looks up the name associated with the inbound number in via DIPS, basically a database lookup, similar to dns lookup.
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As for the submitter...yeh, not a projector rather a screen, probably a brain fart while typing and left off "screen". But if you are going to flame, check your own posting and RTFA before lighting yourself on fire.
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Since the decomposing perxoide produced water and O2, Armadillo is adding methanol (alcohol, commonly used for racing fuel, M85, gasahol etc) to make use of this free oxygen for extra thrust. The temp reched from the decomposing peroxide can get hot enough to ignite the Methanol (and its decomposition by-product of methane gas), although to speed the warmup they are also using a sparkplug to ignite it, and structures in the engine to keep this combustion inside the chamber against its tendancy to flush out with the passing steam. Since its mixed in with the peroxide prior to loading, its considered a mixed-monoprop.
Tm.
I dont know many model rockets powered by Peroxide. I also dont know of many that are capable of going to 131 feet and returning to within 1 foot of their launch point vertically (VTOL), meaning full flight control on takeoff, hover, and landing, and all with the click of a button. This rocket demonstrated the control authority they have now with their vane controlled engine, and their flight control system software. Basically he clicked his mouse, the computer flew the rocket to a pre-determined altitude and returned it to the ground under power.
Sorry, but this is advancement. NASA tried something similar (DC-X/A), but way bigger, took them several years to get it to even take off, and eventually blew it up, all at a much much higher cost ($40mill?). This "Large freakin model rocket" has been developed by a much smaller team, for what Im sure is alot less investment, and proves that their approach to a re-usable rocket can work. This is also their small scale vehicle. They have a larger one using the same technology and systems that they are testing as well. Rather than risk damaging it, they test everything on the smaller one until it works correctly. Read their website (once /. effect wears off), you might actually learn something.
Tm
Sounds like he did stop, but after getting yelled at by the father, probably got back on his segway and left. The article is biased against the segway rider (who really should not have been on the sidewalk), and it would be interesting to hear from witnesses what the father's reaction was. It could be the guy fled in self defense.
Tm
Not sure where you are from, but being from a rather larg city (Atlanta) response time from the police for anything short of shots fired or a SERIOUS car accident (ie: fatality) is at least 20 minutes. 20minutes at 10Mph==3.3+mi, which is a big enough radius and long enough time to allow the segway rider to easily evade police, even if they were to start searching immediately. He was probably at home with the segway parked inside long before the police even got to the scene.
Also, from the article:
The SFPD says it expects to be able to quickly track down the suspect by contacting the Segway company, and obtaining a list of San Francisco Segway owners.
So I doubt it will take too long to find the rider.
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Problem is, VoIP and data run on circuits (local loops) as well. Guess who owns almost all the circuits (voice OR data) in areas run by SBC? Thats right, CLEC's use deregulation to get cicuits at a reasonable price from the ILECs, SBC included. If SBC goes on strike, it affects all Telecomm in SBC's area that use their circuits, not just their service. While other CLECs run their own MUX/Router/Switching equipment and have techs to repair that stuff, anything between their colo cage and the customer is property of SBC (unless someone else happens to own the local loop copper?), and ONLY SBC can play with it without being arrested for tresspassing/tampering with telco equipment/whatever. As an employee of a company that uses SBC circuits in Tx, it will affect us, and we have been told to be prepared in case it happens.
Tm
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