MTBE was not 'recently' mandated. MTBE went in like 5 to 7 years ago. Now the feds have reversed course and MTBE will be phased out of gasoline, nationwide, over the next several years.
No, you are in fact misguided. You've posted several times related to this story and it's obvious that you're beating a VW drum. That's okay (I own a 2000 GTI GLX) but you are not on the ball here. The TDI engines sold in this country are 90 HP units that are indiscriminate in their use of diesel. The European TDI is spec'd at 110 HP I believe. These gains are not made in quality of fuel alone. Trust me, there are a lot of diesel technologies that have not been adapted to the U.S. market due to the poor quality of American diesel.
Newer, direct injection diesels (which the U.S. market TDI is not) will generally not run on American diesel. American TDI engines also do not burn as clean and hence VW is actually ceasing to sell the American TDI in some markets (such as California) where their sale counts against manufacturer's average emissions statistics disproportionately.
There's been a lot of mention of diesel engine technology and how it compares to hybrid gas/electrics. But, scanning the threads quickly, nobody really has explained the PRIMARY reason why diesel has not been better embraced here in the U.S.
The primary reason is that in order for the new generation of diesels to run properly, the direct injection types that are common in Europe and such, diesel fuel needs to have a low sulphur content. In Europe, it's mandated. However in the U.S., for years, refiners have been allowed to produce poor quality diesel fuel. Engine manufacturers in turn won't dare attempt to sell high quality diesels here because of the damage that high sulphur diesel will do to them.
Just recently legislation has been passed in the U.S. that will mandate a gradual phase over to better quality diesel. This will both reduce emissions and allow for better quality diesel engines to be sold in this country. In Europe nearly every model line is sold with a diesel engine - some of them capable of quite astonishing performance might I add (500 lbs or so of torque from a 300 HP diesel engine is not uncommon in luxury models).
Diesel cars have not progressed here because refiners have refused to foot the extra cost of cleaner burning fuel for them. Slowly this will change, hopefully.
...this guy is just a lackey of the music biz. It's really sad that the business model which the music industry is trying to perpetuate is so pervasive, so much so in fact, that it influences people to think like this.
Firstly, I do think this is a bit of a ploy to publicize his girlfriend (was it Cracker that sang "What the world needs now, is another...folk singer, like a I need a hole in my head"...but I digress...).
Secondly, and most importantly is musicians need to realize that Napster is not their enemy, rather it's the music business cartel that controls them. A rather well publicized quote from a Sony executive early in the 1990's when Sony was consolodating recording artists (i.e. putting labels out of business that didn't sell enough records) characterizes "artists" as merely software that is sold as a commodity.
Many misguided musicians think that Napster destroys the "living" they make when in reality it's the labels that cause Poor Mr./Mrs. Folk Singer to not make money. These labels ain't stupid, ya know. They know that mainstream Amerika wants Brittany and the Boyz, and not another folk singer. Sad as that may be.
Musicians such as these are not artists; I don't think any musician worth his or her salt would care what kind of money they made, just as an ancient bard probably wasn't in it for the material things either. Music is an art. Music for money is just...software. Let these people play their silly games, I know the musicians I want to listen to don't care if people download their MP3's for free or not..
It's purpose is to develop and foster global standards for bandwidth usage, among other things. Most modern countries have communications ministries or bureaus that abide by them (the FCC for example).
Placing Linux on front ends (read: webservers) is a no brainer because you can slap together a few PIII's, put 'em behind a local director and be done with it, and you can do it for the cost of ONE Sun Enterprise 450.
Linux has a formidable barrier to overcome, though, before it's a realistic alternative to Sun in back-end architecture. The volume management isn't there, the shared memory performance isn't there and the heavy artillery hardware support (big fargon disk arrays, etc.) isn't there.
Of course I like to see that Linux is gaining market but these peices walk a fine line between truth and FUD for those who aren't determined to read the fine print. Sun actually understands the Linux market and is opening. Solaris media for $10 shipped? I don't see Microsoft doing that. A better story here would be a discussion on the technology gap between Linux and Sun/Solaris and how it is gradually closing. It's not a Sun vs. Linux story.
If you have to make an investment of at least $600 for a decent internet capable computer, plus maybe $20/month for internet service to visit Open Media sites, how is that "open" to anyone except the priviledged?
It depends on the project I'm working on. But usually I start off with some Burt Bacharach and then slide into some Lionel Richie and early Whitney Houston. Really gets me worked up. After that I usually mix it up with some of my favorites: The Osmonds, The Partridge Family and Bryan Adams. If I'm really under pressure I'll usually rock out to something that gets my blood pumping like Roxette, Dokken or Queensryche.
I digress. I don't want a this versus that debate either. Perhaps I was generalizing too broadly. But I think a point still stands that if cable companies are raking in tons of cash, it would the "right" thing to do to pony some up for the advancement and proliferation of new technology. This is why they busted up the phone companies (sorta). How would you like it if you still had to rent your phone?
Canada and most European countries are far ahead of us in terms of liberating and socializing new technologies. France had widespread ISDN in the mid to late 1970's. The U.S. is still living in the dark ages of Rockefeller capitalism. Many other countries know better.
In a day and age of reduced defense spending, it's smart to maintain traditional low-band facilities. Satellites, because of their complexity and cost, are not very fail-safe. One can launch a two-billion dollar satellite and deploy another 500 million worth of receiver appliances only to have the thing turn it's antennas towards Jupiter rather than Earth; necessitating a shuttle launch 18 months later at a cost of 900 million to fix it. Only to have it disabled by space debris 10 months later. It's replacement blows up on the launch-pad.
Shortwave is pretty idiot-proof. If you have the space for an antenna, and some electrical power, you can deploy anywhere on very short notice. I'm sure the military has not forgotten this.
First would be that some enterprising shortwave listeners have indeed "DF'd" these things (traced them to their source). One major source of Spanish and English language numbers stations is (no surprise) some sort of State Department or CIA (nobody is quite sure) facility near Warrenton, VA. I believe a few years ago that Monitoring Times ran a story on the guys who figured this out.
Second, I would disagree with the statement that these are outmoded by satellite communications. You must remember that these are spy communications; as such, this is still the ideal medium. Why? First of all, should a field agent be caught/interrogated/searched, a shortwave radio is a much more anonymous travelling accessory than some strange satellite contraption. Reliability is also an issue. One can purchase a shortwave radio in just about any business district in any part of the world. What if an agent in the field loses his one-off satellite communications unit?
Given the security that one-time pads provide, there really isn't a disadvantage to still use shortwave. Atmospheric conditions and propogation are always an issue, and at times can be less than reliable, but some of these stations are pumping out some *serious* power, and repeat their messages many times a day on different bands.
These things have been infamous for years with the shortwave listening community. They're a little less obscure in Europe; there, the shortwave bands are much more populated (especially the low frequency ones) by broadcasters that occasionally, numbers stations have been known to have been pushed down into the standard broadcast bands. In fact, one of Stereolab's albums features a long sample of a numbers station (Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements if you're interested, available just about anywhere).
Slashdot Mirror
MTBE was not 'recently' mandated. MTBE went in like 5 to 7 years ago. Now the feds have reversed course and MTBE will be phased out of gasoline, nationwide, over the next several years.
No, you are in fact misguided. You've posted several times related to this story and it's obvious that you're beating a VW drum. That's okay (I own a 2000 GTI GLX) but you are not on the ball here. The TDI engines sold in this country are 90 HP units that are indiscriminate in their use of diesel. The European TDI is spec'd at 110 HP I believe. These gains are not made in quality of fuel alone. Trust me, there are a lot of diesel technologies that have not been adapted to the U.S. market due to the poor quality of American diesel.
Newer, direct injection diesels (which the U.S. market TDI is not) will generally not run on American diesel. American TDI engines also do not burn as clean and hence VW is actually ceasing to sell the American TDI in some markets (such as California) where their sale counts against manufacturer's average emissions statistics disproportionately.
The American TDI is okay but advanced it is not.
There's been a lot of mention of diesel engine technology and how it compares to hybrid gas/electrics. But, scanning the threads quickly, nobody really has explained the PRIMARY reason why diesel has not been better embraced here in the U.S.
The primary reason is that in order for the new generation of diesels to run properly, the direct injection types that are common in Europe and such, diesel fuel needs to have a low sulphur content. In Europe, it's mandated. However in the U.S., for years, refiners have been allowed to produce poor quality diesel fuel. Engine manufacturers in turn won't dare attempt to sell high quality diesels here because of the damage that high sulphur diesel will do to them.
Just recently legislation has been passed in the U.S. that will mandate a gradual phase over to better quality diesel. This will both reduce emissions and allow for better quality diesel engines to be sold in this country. In Europe nearly every model line is sold with a diesel engine - some of them capable of quite astonishing performance might I add (500 lbs or so of torque from a 300 HP diesel engine is not uncommon in luxury models).
Diesel cars have not progressed here because refiners have refused to foot the extra cost of cleaner burning fuel for them. Slowly this will change, hopefully.
...this guy is just a lackey of the music biz. It's really sad that the business model which the music industry is trying to perpetuate is so pervasive, so much so in fact, that it influences people to think like this.
Firstly, I do think this is a bit of a ploy to publicize his girlfriend (was it Cracker that sang "What the world needs now, is another...folk singer, like a I need a hole in my head"...but I digress...).
Secondly, and most importantly is musicians need to realize that Napster is not their enemy, rather it's the music business cartel that controls them. A rather well publicized quote from a Sony executive early in the 1990's when Sony was consolodating recording artists (i.e. putting labels out of business that didn't sell enough records) characterizes "artists" as merely software that is sold as a commodity.
Many misguided musicians think that Napster destroys the "living" they make when in reality it's the labels that cause Poor Mr./Mrs. Folk Singer to not make money. These labels ain't stupid, ya know. They know that mainstream Amerika wants Brittany and the Boyz, and not another folk singer. Sad as that may be.
Musicians such as these are not artists; I don't think any musician worth his or her salt would care what kind of money they made, just as an ancient bard probably wasn't in it for the material things either. Music is an art. Music for money is just...software. Let these people play their silly games, I know the musicians I want to listen to don't care if people download their MP3's for free or not..
It's called the International Telecommunications Union, or ITU for short.
It's homepage is here.
It's purpose is to develop and foster global standards for bandwidth usage, among other things. Most modern countries have communications ministries or bureaus that abide by them (the FCC for example).
Placing Linux on front ends (read: webservers) is a no brainer because you can slap together a few PIII's, put 'em behind a local director and be done with it, and you can do it for the cost of ONE Sun Enterprise 450.
Linux has a formidable barrier to overcome, though, before it's a realistic alternative to Sun in back-end architecture. The volume management isn't there, the shared memory performance isn't there and the heavy artillery hardware support (big fargon disk arrays, etc.) isn't there.
Of course I like to see that Linux is gaining market but these peices walk a fine line between truth and FUD for those who aren't determined to read the fine print. Sun actually understands the Linux market and is opening. Solaris media for $10 shipped? I don't see Microsoft doing that. A better story here would be a discussion on the technology gap between Linux and Sun/Solaris and how it is gradually closing. It's not a Sun vs. Linux story.
If you have to make an investment of at least $600 for a decent internet capable computer, plus maybe $20/month for internet service to visit Open Media sites, how is that "open" to anyone except the priviledged?
It depends on the project I'm working on. But usually I start off with some Burt Bacharach and then slide into some Lionel Richie and early Whitney Houston. Really gets me worked up. After that I usually mix it up with some of my favorites: The Osmonds, The Partridge Family and Bryan Adams. If I'm really under pressure I'll usually rock out to something that gets my blood pumping like Roxette, Dokken or Queensryche.
I digress. I don't want a this versus that debate either. Perhaps I was generalizing too broadly.
But I think a point still stands that if cable companies are raking in tons of cash, it would the "right" thing to do to pony some up for the advancement and proliferation of new technology.
This is why they busted up the phone companies (sorta). How would you like it if you still had to rent your phone?
Canada and most European countries are far ahead of us in terms of liberating and socializing new technologies. France had widespread ISDN in the mid to late 1970's. The U.S. is still living in the dark ages of Rockefeller capitalism. Many other countries know better.
In a day and age of reduced defense spending, it's smart to maintain traditional low-band facilities. Satellites, because of their complexity and cost, are not very fail-safe. One can launch a two-billion dollar satellite and deploy another 500 million worth of receiver appliances only to have the thing turn it's antennas towards Jupiter rather than Earth; necessitating a shuttle launch 18 months later at a cost of 900 million to fix it. Only to have it disabled by space debris 10 months later. It's replacement blows up on the launch-pad.
Shortwave is pretty idiot-proof. If you have the space for an antenna, and some electrical power, you can deploy anywhere on very short notice. I'm sure the military has not forgotten this.
Ozone Pilot
Couple of comments.
First would be that some enterprising shortwave listeners have indeed "DF'd" these things (traced them to their source). One major source of Spanish and English language numbers stations is (no surprise) some sort of State Department or CIA (nobody is quite sure) facility near Warrenton, VA. I believe a few years ago that Monitoring Times ran a story on the guys who figured this out.
Second, I would disagree with the statement that these are outmoded by satellite communications. You must remember that these are spy communications; as such, this is still the ideal medium. Why? First of all, should a field agent be caught/interrogated/searched, a shortwave radio is a much more anonymous travelling accessory than some strange satellite contraption. Reliability is also an issue. One can purchase a shortwave radio in just about any business district in any part of the world. What if an agent in the field loses his one-off satellite communications unit?
Given the security that one-time pads provide, there really isn't a disadvantage to still use shortwave. Atmospheric conditions and propogation are always an issue, and at times can be less than reliable, but some of these stations are pumping out some *serious* power, and repeat their messages many times a day on different bands.
These things have been infamous for years with the shortwave listening community. They're a little less obscure in Europe; there, the shortwave bands are much more populated (especially the low frequency ones) by broadcasters that occasionally, numbers stations have been known to have been pushed down into the standard broadcast bands. In fact, one of Stereolab's albums features a long sample of a numbers station (Transient Random Noise Bursts with Announcements if you're interested, available just about anywhere).
Ozone Pilot