(both browsers open with a few tabs, Flash disabled) I noted that both browsers ate extra CPU with the bench results page displaying, so I closed that tab while running the other browser. Not sure if test differs if scrolled to see whole test area instead of leaving page as loaded?
It's great that people enjoy creating or being around art, but it is important to be aware of the functional aspects of case design. Besides providing for ventilation, cases also should act as Faraday cages to contain R.F. electromagnetic radiation which could interfere with a great variety of services. Some mods are bad from a functional standpoint. Unless internal electronics is already fully sheilded, like with the original colorful iMac, cases are normally metal or are treated with foil, screening, or conductive-coating shielding. All ports/cables going in and out must have suitable filtering. As with the doors seen on microwave ovens, it is possible to have visible openings if they are small enough compared to the shortest wavelength that needs to be blocked.
Many engineers that are very skilled at other aspects of product design may still overlook such things as r.f. leakage. Although there are F.C.C. rules (and similar rules outside the U.S.) to restrict radiation, it isn't uncommon to find imported products in violation. Also, many selling systems build from various pieces using standard or custom cases have failed to do the required testing and certification for retail sale. They risk huge fines. I've seen retail chains illegally selling PCs they built up in-house, and the practice is even more common with small computer shops. Generally every retail device that uses radio-frequency energy should have an F.C.C. ID number on it.
The digital circuitry deals with pulse (non-sinusoidal) signals so the harmonics present extend much higher in frequency than the pulse and clock rates. Switching power supplies, including those in energy efficient lighting, will create troublesome r.f. noise if not properly designed.
Who is saying that this chunk of 700MHz is going to be used only for mobile devices?
The article related to AT&T so most of the discussion here has that focus: "In an announcement made Monday, the telecommunications giant said the extra wireless spectrum will help it provide 4G mobile broadband to its customers in the next few years."
What you're doing is interesting and no doubt much appreciated, but I'd be surprised if it could scale very far with many people and heavy consumption. I'm sure I'm not alone in being interested in hearing more details of hardware you're using. I don't expect AT&T to be aggressive at all in serving low-density areas with wireless that way unless it is part of some subsidy.
It is tough for any wireless ISP to scale to handle things like widescale video consumption. Getting good page-load burst speeds is one thing, but handling many people with sustained streamed video demand is far tougher. Once those former dialup users discover high quality streaming video, their usage patterns will likely change significantly. That's if caps or the network choking don't stop them. Net video delivery is still in its infancy and Netflix alone already accounts for 20% of peak-period net traffic. How many simultaneous customers using a steady 1 megabit/second plus can each site support per 6 MHz of spectrum? The many just reading mail or occasionally loading a web page have much less impact of course, but fear those who really use what's out there.
The monthly bandwidth caps seen on most mobile plans could easily be used in one day by someone trying to get all of their HD video that way. The system would need 30 times the capacity to deliver that every day. Peak speed is just a selling point, it's total capacity that really matters.
It's pretty clear why AT&T was quick to kill their unlimited data plan, why Apple introduced Facetime (video chat) with it enabled only on WiFi and why wireless data plans generally have relatively low monthly caps. There just isn't the spectrum/capacity for many people to use the networks as heavily as with home (cable/DSL) providers. Jumping to those other paths whenever possible is one of the things needed to moderate the load.
You're right about R.C.A., it's a name to license. But the high-tech creative part of H.P. lives on as Agilent, with the H.P. name leaving with the H.P. (computer) / Compaq merging.
Of older companies that did survive, the focus has often changed. Most consumers don't recall Motorola as being the company to first make car radios, or the first under $100 television set. Thaty were later huge in semiconductors, but that too changed moving off to become Freescale.
Time will tell if Byte offers anything at all for the hobbyist that wants to learn or share ideas.
It seems more likely that there won't be much difference between the ads and the articles.
Maybe a quick toasting in a microwave oven would help. It's probably easier than carrying your cash in tin foil. What else is there? The dollar coin? Maybe they'll soon make $20 or $50 coins. Gotta have change for the parking meter...
The sniffing for high value idea has been used before. I read that some sniffed for wireless MAC strings with an Apple vendor ID as the first half of the address to target places to break into.
For as insightful as you seem to be, you seem to have never learned about directional antennas, or at least have never applied the idea in this context.
This context, data access to the masses on mobile devices, has very limited options for use of directional antennas.
Someone walking around generally has no place to mount a directional antenna, no idea which way to point one, and may very well be moving around making it difficult to maintain aiming.
It's difficult for an ISP to do too much with directional antennas since in many instances users could be in any direction. They could however help to allow what amounts to separate access points to operate from one location. But that's still breaking down the area covered into smaller regions and using more access points. An example would be to use a hilltop site with one equipment package and antenna serving one side of the hill it is on, and a similar system directed at users on the other side of the hill. Basically one still has to increase the number of access point systems. Directional antennas at the ISP end would allow the convenience and site rental efficiency of covering a few segments from one physical site.
It all boils down to the same basics with a limited frequency spectrum available:
1) allow more non-colliding reuse of the same spectrum by limiting the range (area actually) covered by user and ISP equipment
2) The slice of spectrum a user needs at one time can be reduced by limiting the data rate. (more space between wideband packet bursts can divide the spectrum use in time, but since the user signals may not be able to sense each other to avoid conflicting signals hitting the access point at once, the access points and their protocols would have to designed to control when user packets are sent. In general WiFi is poor at that so speeds suffer with many users on due to collision. Site capacity gets wasted due to the need to retransmit clobbered packets.)
3) Reducing the amount of data per user. That's a tough one since users want some demanding content and others want to profit from providing it. Beyond limiting use by making it expensive, forcing use of the most efficient codecs is the best way to give people what they want while minimizing resources used. Perhaps some higher latency steaming techniques could be used to send more of the data during brief dips in demand, reducing peak demand. Anything to shift demand to off-peak would help.
4) Cheat. Offload some demand to other bands/technologies (more discussion below)
Perhaps you're aware of some technology that I'm not? Diversity reception (auto-switching between multiple antennas) helps. In theory one could have directional antennas that are auto-directed under CPU control, with the directional behavior of the combined multiple antenna elements steered by controlling the phase (time delay) of signals for each element. I have yet to see that sort of technology used in consumer network gear. It still is likely too big, too complex, and probably too costly for small mobile devices. Perhaps demand in some high traffic outdoor areas could see relief by offloading to even shorter range systems (automatically dumping from licensed spectrum to WiFi or white space DTV spectrum when possible; maybe even something done with infra-red could work). There are many times we're physically near more efficient pathways, things just haven't yet evolved to make best shared use. Obviously there are significant issues including security, prioritization, and incentives.
Yeah. At least it doesn't start a fire? Hopefully there's something between the battery and the terminals to limit the current to a safe value. I wonder if people could cut the strap or whatever is connecting the two hooks? I suppose then they might fall out or something. At least an external cover is easily replaced and they're willing to do it. I suppose later some may complain that the occasional shorting of the power shortened the battery life so it should be replaced for free...
Queue the people ready to flame on other vendors' hardware.
I think an ideal place for cellphones would be Channels 1-6, since these are almost worthless for digital television (picture breaks-up).
There hasn't been an over-the-air channel 1 in the U.S. since 1941.
The "gap" between the FM band and TV channel 7 is spectrum a cable system can and do use because they control all of their signals, but those frequencies are already licensed for many over-the-air uses. It's NOT empty spectrum. AM broadcast through where channel 1 was isn't empty either.
The optimum length for antenna elements relates to the wavelength which is inversely proportional to the frequency. A 1/4 wave antenna for channel 2 would be close to five feet long. It's not practical to put a big whip or pair of rabbit ears on a cellphone.
Channels 2 - 6 may occasionally get some pulse noise from things like crackling dirty power line insulators, but the range for tv is actually better than any of the other channels provided that people put up full-sized antennas with the longer elements needed for lower frequencies. In practice many people are unwilling or unable to put up the larger antennas, and have an easier time with small UHF or medium sized high-band (7 - 13) VHF antennas. In any event, if people have trouble find room where they live for a low-band VHF antenna, they certainly won't have access to anything optimal (huge) on handheld devices. About twice the size of an FM whip, about half that of an old CB antenna, is what it would take. It would be great for emergency use in cars with long whip antennas. Although rated at the same gain compared to reference dipoles, the larger lower frequency antennas pick up more energy due to their larger capture area. (dish antennas are an exception) That's the main reason VHF stations are licensed with less power than UHF to do the same job.
Except for areas with very low population density, long-range data access is not practical when a great deal of bandwidth is needed. The bandwidth basically has to be divided among the active users in the area covered. The area covered goes up with the square of the distance so the number of users would climb rapidly as range goes up.
Although a traditional DTV broadcast is seen by mnay people, since the transmission is one way with the same content available to all, the bandwidth then all goes to ONE user. A 6 MHz channel provides far less per person when each is doing their own thing.
If users need significant bandwidth, a better system would be to have a huge amount of very cheap bandwidth to our homes and public access spots, and wideband very short range hotspots all over.
I think it's a bit of an industry conspiracy that people are being scared into not sharing their wireless networks. The threats of malware and snooping exist for internet use in general. The focus for shared wireless should be use of well designed routers and access control. Control ports, bandwidth etc to protect performance of the host user(s), have guest authentication and controls to prevent abuses (p2p, underage porn or whatever). With well designed cooperative hardware we could easily have what amounts to free VOIP in many (stationary) places, and if we had home networks with the sort of bandwidth many abroad get, even guest sharing for video streaming would be viable.
The wireless part of this picture could be essentially free. Not what AT&T wants...
Let's see Apple or a new startup revolutionize wireless sharing by offering a new breed of router. Think DD-WRT with Apple DNA in it.
It looks like "Federal News Radio" has nothing special to do with this story, they're just an AM News Talk station carrying A.P. (Associated Press) stories. Looks like I got suspicious over nothing.
It would be nice if more summaries had links that went back as close as possible to the original source.
Locked out since June? This seems newsworthy to me, where is the lame stream media on this story?
My B.S. detector is going off.
Am I the only one taking note of "Federal News Radio" as being pretty much unheard of? The name sounds like a network, yet it is apparently a single station, WFED a directional AM station in Washington D.C. http://www.federalnewsradio.com/ It's strange that the website shows 1500 AM, but doesn't even mention the call letters. I'm surprised to see so many stories listed on the website, and puzzled that the large buttons near the top of the page don't link anywhere.
The story may be legitimate, but I'm very suspicious of news sources that seem to pop up out of nowhere with weighty-sounding names. There certainly are interest groups that cook up such things for one agenda or another.
The "they" that removed credit card interest rate limits was the supreme court.
Not exactly. What they did in 1978 was to make it permissible for the laws of the state where the lender was chartered to apply instead of those of the state the customer resides in.
One wireless carrier alone like Verizon couldn't implement such a net-killing feature: their customers would abandon them cold.
One would think so, but I never expected people would actually pay for ring tones or watch reality tv. It seems if one isn't boycotting slime you're helping it grow.
The greed is sickening. Or is this the Verizon way of dealing with more traffic on getting the iPhone?
As poor as the pricing/bandwidth ratio is for much U.S. home net access, many mobile plans still give people lower caps for a month than many home users eat in a day. If not using WiFi, some of the new owners of these mobile devices will be in for a serious shock if they try to use them heavily.
We also gave some of these providers subsidies to build out their networks. What did we get in return?
This is why I like China. While they do spy on citizens and want to have their way, at least they're being honest about it.
Are we forgetting what happened last April? A huge amount of traffic, including that for.mil and.gov was routed through China. Monitoring that traffic could make future phishing attacks much easier, having had access to things like individual IPs and mail traffic. What's honest or likeable about that? It's the stuff nightmares are made of.
Right at the bottom of the World For Public Opinion article is a statement on funding. It's really stretching to throw out some claimed stats for the state and claim that as showing bias for an organization.
"WorldPublicOpinion.org is a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland and funded by the Calvert Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund."
For those that didn't click through from one article to the next, this is the one:
Has anyone seen a comparitive analysis for accuracy between Fox and Aljaazera? Many dismiss the later without ever having seen it. I recall that when it went one the air there was enough vocal opposition that many cable systems didn't carry it. It would be interesting to hear a variety of informed perspectives on the depth, accuracy and leanings of many sources. Perhaps it is healthy to get exposure to a wide variety of sources and not blindly trust or dismiss any of them.
The calories matter, but very little fructose can be used by the body directly compared to glucose. It gets converted to fat. If you're pretty active, you can burn that fat. But for things like providing the energy your brain needs, it isn't metabolized well. You can actually feel short on energy at the same time you're converting fructose to fat. The liver has to work harder to process it too. Most of the time what people perceive as energy from a soda is actually the caffeine. And with fructose, your brain is less apt to tell you you're full, so gulping down large amounts of fructose is way too easy. It's junk calories that can contribute to fat without doing anything useful. It's a waste of money. If you tried to live on 2000 calories of fructose a day you may not get fat but it wouldn't take long to be sickly.
Obesity in the U.S. has become much more of a problem since we started subsidizing corn in the Reagan era. The very high yield variety that is profitable (with subsidy) is very low protein and not suitable for eating. It does get fed to cows since it fattens them quickly, resulting in a more sickly and fat-loaded beef supply. It's a very unhealty diet for cows which would kill them if they weren't pumped full of antibiotics. It degrades our food supply in more ways than are obvious at a glance.
When one uses only a single test, perhaps a specially crafted one, the conclusions may be misleading.
As an extreme example if one takes an area of a country where people are very well fed, and perhaps taking in far more nutrients than needed, it is entirely possible that one could come up with a study showing substantial nutritional value in sewer waste. Without taking into account the other characteristics (bacteria, viruses, levels of toxic medications, smell etc.), sewer waste might actually be portrayed as a good inexpensive source of nutrition.
I don't mean to pass any judgement on whether IE is wonderful or terrible. The point is that one narrow measure should be kept in perspective and not used as the sole basis for an overall opinion.
Yeah, I agree that comparing these measurements in general is a bit ridiculous. It's much more interesting (and useful) to look at how various societal factors correlate to the change in BMI over time.
Yes, there is much to be learned looking at the increases in obesity over time. The U.S. corn subsidies, lower-protein corn engineered for the production of high fructose corn syrup, and the widespread use of corn syrup directly and indirectly in foods has been shown to have had a major impact. (An example of a harmful indirect use is for feeding cattle. They're higher fat and harbor more-harmful strains of E-coli due to the higher acidity the diet causes) A long list of related links is available from the page for the documentary King Corn which was presented within the PBS Independent Lens series.
Here is simple graphic for seeing where one is as far as Body Mass Index. (a separate table adjusted with slightly less massive norms for Asians is also available)
The U.N. and W.H.O. have extensive obesity data available which shows variation over time, by region, by gender etc. (sorry I don't have time to refind the links to the excellent sources I've seen there previously) It's not a contest between countries. Finding obesity in other nations certainly doesn't make it any less serious at home.
Why is it amazing that an analog control system works?
It's not surprising that an analog system works well, but it does seem to be getting less and less common to find engineers or hobbyists that are skilled at cooking them up. Now days many young people get hooked on computers and games with fewer taking an interest in things more analog like ham radio or building their own audio amps and speaker systems.
Pre-iMac Macs had an interface buss called ADB (Apple Desktop Buss). One could string multiple input devices together and use them at the same time. Support went beyond mice, keyboards, trackpads, game controllers, drawing tablets etc. A third party product called ADBI/O used the ADB to interface external hardware through the ADB. It could interact with custom Apps or simple scripts (Apple Script). The ADBI/O could be support multiple contact closure inputs and do A/D conversion of voltages (anything that could be converter to a voltage) as well. Between the two, many types of inputs were possible. (It also could provide outputs, good for control or status indicators). With simple electronics one might detect specific sounds from dog whistles tuned to different frequencies (or use an old ultrasonic TV remote like the type Zenith used in the 60's). One could use hardware with radio signals, like a garage door controller, or attach solar cells with different colored filers, so flashlights with different filters could be used for different functions or by different people. One might use microwave or light-beam interruption proximity detectors to tell when someone reaches a certain point, or moves a hand to actuate a particular sensor. Certainly any existing technology that could provide a contact closure could be used for input. Put a butt-switch in a chair, measure temperature, windspeed, sense a childs wet pants, use a float in a tank... Homemade input sensors could use something as simple as magnets and magnetic reed switches. Use a foot switch if you like, or connect one of those clap-on/clap-off devices through a simple interface. Various types of infra-red sensors could be used. Some computers had infrared sensors built in. Many different styles of remotes are possible.
Scripts working between apps or machines are nothing new, so having more than one or various types involved is an obvious use. Using anything you've ever seen clickable on a web page as input is an obvious possibility which would certainly support many different varieties of question response mode, style or appearance. Having various types of input styles certainly predates web software. Apples FileMaker database product goes way back (Apple bought it in early days). A great variety of educational apps and styles were seen with the Apple Hypercard product, which supported web-like linking between "stacks" although it wasn't across a net at that time. However the ability to tie multiple things made by different people together was there. Since users created those hypercard stacks, and endless variety of educational inputs and outputs was possible. If you wanted a "moo" or picture of a bottle of milk when you clicked on a cows tit, no problem.
There used to be a mailing list for ADBI/O user discussion groups. I'm not sure if archives are out there somewhere. The product was discontinued after Apple went USB. It had seen use in a great variety of applications from industrial, to sales / museum kiosk interactivity, to education.
With the scriptability of Applications within Mac OS, there was no requirement to have custom apps to be able to use different types of input. The OS and third-party apps also supported a wide variety of things to aid interface with people having various types and degree of disabilities. Speech recognition tied to scripting was supported too. Even in the 90's it was easy to set Mac OS so you could say "computer show me porn" and have a slideshow start.
Using various types of clickers as input for standard or custom software is nothing new. Just ask the person doing the weather at your local tv station. (I suspect Steve Jobs has a clicker or two in use during those great keynote presentations
It's really absurd that an OS / app / platform developer should be able to patent the things users come up with as uses for computers. I do think more tools for user app creativity should be provided. What will get kids to take an early interest in programming. Imagine a simple we
Slashdot Mirror
No bragging here, early Core Duo MB 2 GHz GMA950 (2006) 10.6.5
Firefox Minefield 4.0b9pre Browser Version: shown as 2.0b9 (build 20101224030347) Score: 5198
Webkit Nightly Safari 534.15 5.0.3 (6533.19.4 r74228) Score: 9317
(both browsers open with a few tabs, Flash disabled)
I noted that both browsers ate extra CPU with the bench results page displaying, so I closed that tab while running the other browser. Not sure if test differs if scrolled to see whole test area instead of leaving page as loaded?
It's great that people enjoy creating or being around art, but it is important to be aware of the functional aspects of case design. Besides providing for ventilation, cases also should act as Faraday cages to contain R.F. electromagnetic radiation which could interfere with a great variety of services. Some mods are bad from a functional standpoint.
Unless internal electronics is already fully sheilded, like with the original colorful iMac, cases are normally metal or are treated with foil, screening, or conductive-coating shielding. All ports/cables going in and out must have suitable filtering. As with the doors seen on microwave ovens, it is possible to have visible openings if they are small enough compared to the shortest wavelength that needs to be blocked.
Many engineers that are very skilled at other aspects of product design may still overlook such things as r.f. leakage. Although there are F.C.C. rules (and similar rules outside the U.S.) to restrict radiation, it isn't uncommon to find imported products in violation. Also, many selling systems build from various pieces using standard or custom cases have failed to do the required testing and certification for retail sale. They risk huge fines. I've seen retail chains illegally selling PCs they built up in-house, and the practice is even more common with small computer shops. Generally every retail device that uses radio-frequency energy should have an F.C.C. ID number on it.
The digital circuitry deals with pulse (non-sinusoidal) signals so the harmonics present extend much higher in frequency than the pulse and clock rates. Switching power supplies, including those in energy efficient lighting, will create troublesome r.f. noise if not properly designed.
Who is saying that this chunk of 700MHz is going to be used only for mobile devices?
The article related to AT&T so most of the discussion here has that focus:
"In an announcement made Monday, the telecommunications giant said the extra wireless spectrum will help it provide 4G mobile broadband to its customers in the next few years."
What you're doing is interesting and no doubt much appreciated, but I'd be surprised if it could scale very far with many people and heavy consumption. I'm sure I'm not alone in being interested in hearing more details of hardware you're using. I don't expect AT&T to be aggressive at all in serving low-density areas with wireless that way unless it is part of some subsidy.
It is tough for any wireless ISP to scale to handle things like widescale video consumption. Getting good page-load burst speeds is one thing, but handling many people with sustained streamed video demand is far tougher. Once those former dialup users discover high quality streaming video, their usage patterns will likely change significantly. That's if caps or the network choking don't stop them. Net video delivery is still in its infancy and Netflix alone already accounts for 20% of peak-period net traffic. How many simultaneous customers using a steady 1 megabit/second plus can each site support per 6 MHz of spectrum? The many just reading mail or occasionally loading a web page have much less impact of course, but fear those who really use what's out there.
Netflix story
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13506_3-20020434-17.html
The monthly bandwidth caps seen on most mobile plans could easily be used in one day by someone trying to get all of their HD video that way. The system would need 30 times the capacity to deliver that every day. Peak speed is just a selling point, it's total capacity that really matters.
It's pretty clear why AT&T was quick to kill their unlimited data plan, why Apple introduced Facetime (video chat) with it enabled only on WiFi and why wireless data plans generally have relatively low monthly caps. There just isn't the spectrum/capacity for many people to use the networks as heavily as with home (cable/DSL) providers. Jumping to those other paths whenever possible is one of the things needed to moderate the load.
You're right about R.C.A., it's a name to license. But the high-tech creative part of H.P. lives on as Agilent, with the H.P. name leaving with the H.P. (computer) / Compaq merging.
Of older companies that did survive, the focus has often changed. Most consumers don't recall Motorola as being the company to first make car radios, or the first under $100 television set. Thaty were later huge in semiconductors, but that too changed moving off to become Freescale.
Time will tell if Byte offers anything at all for the hobbyist that wants to learn or share ideas.
It seems more likely that there won't be much difference between the ads and the articles.
The /. crowd might get more out of something like http://www.nutsvolts.com/
Maybe a quick toasting in a microwave oven would help. It's probably easier than carrying your cash in tin foil. What else is there? The dollar coin? Maybe they'll soon make $20 or $50 coins.
Gotta have change for the parking meter...
The sniffing for high value idea has been used before. I read that some sniffed for wireless MAC strings with an Apple vendor ID as the first half of the address to target places to break into.
For as insightful as you seem to be, you seem to have never learned about directional antennas, or at least have never applied the idea in this context.
This context, data access to the masses on mobile devices, has very limited options for use of directional antennas.
Someone walking around generally has no place to mount a directional antenna, no idea which way to point one, and may very well be moving around making it difficult to maintain aiming.
It's difficult for an ISP to do too much with directional antennas since in many instances users could be in any direction. They could however help to allow what amounts to separate access points to operate from one location. But that's still breaking down the area covered into smaller regions and using more access points. An example would be to use a hilltop site with one equipment package and antenna serving one side of the hill it is on, and a similar system directed at users on the other side of the hill. Basically one still has to increase the number of access point systems. Directional antennas at the ISP end would allow the convenience and site rental efficiency of covering a few segments from one physical site.
It all boils down to the same basics with a limited frequency spectrum available:
1) allow more non-colliding reuse of the same spectrum by limiting the range (area actually) covered by user and ISP equipment
2) The slice of spectrum a user needs at one time can be reduced by limiting the data rate. (more space between wideband packet bursts can divide the spectrum use in time, but since the user signals may not be able to sense each other to avoid conflicting signals hitting the access point at once, the access points and their protocols would have to designed to control when user packets are sent. In general WiFi is poor at that so speeds suffer with many users on due to collision. Site capacity gets wasted due to the need to retransmit clobbered packets.)
3) Reducing the amount of data per user. That's a tough one since users want some demanding content and others want to profit from providing it. Beyond limiting use by making it expensive, forcing use of the most efficient codecs is the best way to give people what they want while minimizing resources used. Perhaps some higher latency steaming techniques could be used to send more of the data during brief dips in demand, reducing peak demand. Anything to shift demand to off-peak would help.
4) Cheat. Offload some demand to other bands/technologies (more discussion below)
Perhaps you're aware of some technology that I'm not? Diversity reception (auto-switching between multiple antennas) helps. In theory one could have directional antennas that are auto-directed under CPU control, with the directional behavior of the combined multiple antenna elements steered by controlling the phase (time delay) of signals for each element. I have yet to see that sort of technology used in consumer network gear. It still is likely too big, too complex, and probably too costly for small mobile devices. Perhaps demand in some high traffic outdoor areas could see relief by offloading to even shorter range systems (automatically dumping from licensed spectrum to WiFi or white space DTV spectrum when possible; maybe even something done with infra-red could work). There are many times we're physically near more efficient pathways, things just haven't yet evolved to make best shared use. Obviously there are significant issues including security, prioritization, and incentives.
Paying attention to what an interactive spell checker is doing may help some learn. It helps if people are that motivated. Some just don't care.
Sometimes the spell checkers just can't figure out what people are attempting to write, but Google can usually guess what is meant.
Perhaps some of that Google code could be adapted to make a good desktop app or browser plugin spell guesser checker helper thing.
It's sad that some employers have to require applications to be done on the spot just to show that applicants can actually read and write.
Scoring too well on exams may be dangerous.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examination_Day
Wow. That's a pretty major design flaw.
Yeah. At least it doesn't start a fire? Hopefully there's something between the battery and the terminals to limit the current to a safe value. I wonder if people could cut the strap or whatever is connecting the two hooks? I suppose then they might fall out or something. At least an external cover is easily replaced and they're willing to do it.
I suppose later some may complain that the occasional shorting of the power shortened the battery life so it should be replaced for free...
Queue the people ready to flame on other vendors' hardware.
I think an ideal place for cellphones would be Channels 1-6, since these are almost worthless for digital television (picture breaks-up).
There hasn't been an over-the-air channel 1 in the U.S. since 1941.
The "gap" between the FM band and TV channel 7 is spectrum a cable system can and do use because they control all of their signals, but those frequencies are already licensed for many over-the-air uses. It's NOT empty spectrum. AM broadcast through where channel 1 was isn't empty either.
The optimum length for antenna elements relates to the wavelength which is inversely proportional to the frequency. A 1/4 wave antenna for channel 2 would be close to five feet long. It's not practical to put a big whip or pair of rabbit ears on a cellphone.
Channels 2 - 6 may occasionally get some pulse noise from things like crackling dirty power line insulators, but the range for tv is actually better than any of the other channels provided that people put up full-sized antennas with the longer elements needed for lower frequencies. In practice many people are unwilling or unable to put up the larger antennas, and have an easier time with small UHF or medium sized high-band (7 - 13) VHF antennas. In any event, if people have trouble find room where they live for a low-band VHF antenna, they certainly won't have access to anything optimal (huge) on handheld devices. About twice the size of an FM whip, about half that of an old CB antenna, is what it would take. It would be great for emergency use in cars with long whip antennas.
Although rated at the same gain compared to reference dipoles, the larger lower frequency antennas pick up more energy due to their larger capture area. (dish antennas are an exception) That's the main reason VHF stations are licensed with less power than UHF to do the same job.
Except for areas with very low population density, long-range data access is not practical when a great deal of bandwidth is needed. The bandwidth basically has to be divided among the active users in the area covered. The area covered goes up with the square of the distance so the number of users would climb rapidly as range goes up.
Although a traditional DTV broadcast is seen by mnay people, since the transmission is one way with the same content available to all, the bandwidth then all goes to ONE user. A 6 MHz channel provides far less per person when each is doing their own thing.
If users need significant bandwidth, a better system would be to have a huge amount of very cheap bandwidth to our homes and public access spots, and wideband very short range hotspots all over.
I think it's a bit of an industry conspiracy that people are being scared into not sharing their wireless networks. The threats of malware and snooping exist for internet use in general. The focus for shared wireless should be use of well designed routers and access control. Control ports, bandwidth etc to protect performance of the host user(s), have guest authentication and controls to prevent abuses (p2p, underage porn or whatever). With well designed cooperative hardware we could easily have what amounts to free VOIP in many (stationary) places, and if we had home networks with the sort of bandwidth many abroad get, even guest sharing for video streaming would be viable.
The wireless part of this picture could be essentially free. Not what AT&T wants...
Let's see Apple or a new startup revolutionize wireless sharing by offering a new breed of router. Think DD-WRT with Apple DNA in it.
It looks like "Federal News Radio" has nothing special to do with this story, they're just an AM News Talk station carrying A.P. (Associated Press) stories. Looks like I got suspicious over nothing.
It would be nice if more summaries had links that went back as close as possible to the original source.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPERMANS_HOMETOWN_LABOR_STRIFE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2010-12-20-16-54-53
Locked out since June? This seems newsworthy to me, where is the lame stream media on this story?
My B.S. detector is going off.
Am I the only one taking note of "Federal News Radio" as being pretty much unheard of? The name sounds like a network, yet it is apparently a single station, WFED a directional AM station in Washington D.C.
http://www.federalnewsradio.com/ It's strange that the website shows 1500 AM, but doesn't even mention the call letters. I'm surprised to see so many stories listed on the website, and puzzled that the large buttons near the top of the page don't link anywhere.
The story may be legitimate, but I'm very suspicious of news sources that seem to pop up out of nowhere with weighty-sounding names. There certainly are interest groups that cook up such things for one agenda or another.
FCC technical details for 1500 AM
http://www.fcc.gov/fcc-bin/amq?list=0&facid=74120
It looks like the source is just another news-talk AM station
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WFED
The "they" that removed credit card interest rate limits was the supreme court.
Not exactly. What they did in 1978 was to make it permissible for the laws of the state where the lender was chartered to apply instead of those of the state the customer resides in.
Where they are:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/more/map.html
General info:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/credit/eight/
Beware of credit of the last resort
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Card_(The_New_Twilight_Zone)
Or prostate cancer screenings...
One wireless carrier alone like Verizon couldn't implement such a net-killing feature: their customers would abandon them cold.
One would think so, but I never expected people would actually pay for ring tones or watch reality tv. It seems if one isn't boycotting slime you're helping it grow.
The greed is sickening. Or is this the Verizon way of dealing with more traffic on getting the iPhone?
As poor as the pricing/bandwidth ratio is for much U.S. home net access, many mobile plans still give people lower caps for a month than many home users eat in a day. If not using WiFi, some of the new owners of these mobile devices will be in for a serious shock if they try to use them heavily.
We also gave some of these providers subsidies to build out their networks. What did we get in return?
This is why I like China. While they do spy on citizens and want to have their way, at least they're being honest about it.
Are we forgetting what happened last April? A huge amount of traffic, including that for .mil and .gov was routed through China. Monitoring that traffic could make future phishing attacks much easier, having had access to things like individual IPs and mail traffic.
What's honest or likeable about that? It's the stuff nightmares are made of.
http://slashdot.org/story/10/11/29/1755230/Chinese-DNS-Tampering-a-Real-Threat-To-Outsiders
From the article, it is a plugin to an extension:
"This new plug-in, known as the HTML5 Extension for Windows Media Player Firefox Plug-in, is available for download"
Perhaps the VLC plugin could be enhanced to do the same thing?
The article doesn't mention support for GPU acceleration, or to what extent it uses/supports 64 bit mode or extended instructions.
- - -
Hiroshima 45, Tchernobyl 86, Windows 95
Right at the bottom of the World For Public Opinion article is a statement on funding. It's really stretching to throw out some claimed stats for the state and claim that as showing bias for an organization.
"WorldPublicOpinion.org is a project managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland and funded by the Calvert Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund."
For those that didn't click through from one article to the next, this is the one:
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/brunitedstatescanadara/671.php?nid=&id=&pnt=671&lb=
Has anyone seen a comparitive analysis for accuracy between Fox and Aljaazera? Many dismiss the later without ever having seen it. I recall that when it went one the air there was enough vocal opposition that many cable systems didn't carry it. It would be interesting to hear a variety of informed perspectives on the depth, accuracy and leanings of many sources. Perhaps it is healthy to get exposure to a wide variety of sources and not blindly trust or dismiss any of them.
(some content is on youtube)
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=AlJazeeraEnglish#g/u
When it doubt, there's The Daily Show... poking fun at everyone
The calories matter, but very little fructose can be used by the body directly compared to glucose. It gets converted to fat. If you're pretty active, you can burn that fat. But for things like providing the energy your brain needs, it isn't metabolized well. You can actually feel short on energy at the same time you're converting fructose to fat. The liver has to work harder to process it too. Most of the time what people perceive as energy from a soda is actually the caffeine.
And with fructose, your brain is less apt to tell you you're full, so gulping down large amounts of fructose is way too easy. It's junk calories that can contribute to fat without doing anything useful.
It's a waste of money. If you tried to live on 2000 calories of fructose a day you may not get fat but it wouldn't take long to be sickly.
Obesity in the U.S. has become much more of a problem since we started subsidizing corn in the Reagan era. The very high yield variety that is profitable (with subsidy) is very low protein and not suitable for eating. It does get fed to cows since it fattens them quickly, resulting in a more sickly and fat-loaded beef supply. It's a very unhealty diet for cows which would kill them if they weren't pumped full of antibiotics. It degrades our food supply in more ways than are obvious at a glance.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mercola/sugar-may-be-bad-but-this_b_463655.html
When one uses only a single test, perhaps a specially crafted one, the conclusions may be misleading.
As an extreme example if one takes an area of a country where people are very well fed, and perhaps taking in far more nutrients than needed, it is entirely possible that one could come up with a study showing substantial nutritional value in sewer waste. Without taking into account the other characteristics (bacteria, viruses, levels of toxic medications, smell etc.), sewer waste might actually be portrayed as a good inexpensive source of nutrition.
I don't mean to pass any judgement on whether IE is wonderful or terrible. The point is that one narrow measure should be kept in perspective and not used as the sole basis for an overall opinion.
Yeah, I agree that comparing these measurements in general is a bit ridiculous. It's much more interesting (and useful) to look at how various societal factors correlate to the change in BMI over time.
Yes, there is much to be learned looking at the increases in obesity over time. The U.S. corn subsidies, lower-protein corn engineered for the production of high fructose corn syrup, and the widespread use of corn syrup directly and indirectly in foods has been shown to have had a major impact. (An example of a harmful indirect use is for feeding cattle. They're higher fat and harbor more-harmful strains of E-coli due to the higher acidity the diet causes)
A long list of related links is available from the page for the documentary King Corn which was presented within the PBS Independent Lens series.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/kingcorn/more.html
Here is simple graphic for seeing where one is as far as Body Mass Index.
(a separate table adjusted with slightly less massive norms for Asians is also available)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Body_mass_index_chart.svg
The U.N. and W.H.O. have extensive obesity data available which shows variation over time, by region, by gender etc. (sorry I don't have time to refind the links to the excellent sources I've seen there previously)
It's not a contest between countries. Finding obesity in other nations certainly doesn't make it any less serious at home.
Could the recent coronal mass ejection (CME) have anything to do with this?
http://slashdot.org/story/10/12/07/2158228/slashdot.sourceforge.net
Last summer Slashdot ran a story on making use of that sugar.
http://idle.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/08/31/1713210
Some may laugh at this technology but sniffing the pheromone trails of frat boys may very well be the shortest path to beer.
Why is it amazing that an analog control system works?
It's not surprising that an analog system works well, but it does seem to be getting less and less common to find engineers or hobbyists that are skilled at cooking them up. Now days many young people get hooked on computers and games with fewer taking an interest in things more analog like ham radio or building their own audio amps and speaker systems.
Pre-iMac Macs had an interface buss called ADB (Apple Desktop Buss). One could string multiple input devices together and use them at the same time. Support went beyond mice, keyboards, trackpads, game controllers, drawing tablets etc. A third party product called ADBI/O used the ADB to interface external hardware through the ADB. It could interact with custom Apps or simple scripts (Apple Script). The ADBI/O could be support multiple contact closure inputs and do A/D conversion of voltages (anything that could be converter to a voltage) as well. Between the two, many types of inputs were possible. (It also could provide outputs, good for control or status indicators). With simple electronics one might detect specific sounds from dog whistles tuned to different frequencies (or use an old ultrasonic TV remote like the type Zenith used in the 60's). One could use hardware with radio signals, like a garage door controller, or attach solar cells with different colored filers, so flashlights with different filters could be used for different functions or by different people. One might use microwave or light-beam interruption proximity detectors to tell when someone reaches a certain point, or moves a hand to actuate a particular sensor. Certainly any existing technology that could provide a contact closure could be used for input. Put a butt-switch in a chair, measure temperature, windspeed, sense a childs wet pants, use a float in a tank... Homemade input sensors could use something as simple as magnets and magnetic reed switches. Use a foot switch if you like, or connect one of those clap-on/clap-off devices through a simple interface. Various types of infra-red sensors could be used. Some computers had infrared sensors built in. Many different styles of remotes are possible.
Scripts working between apps or machines are nothing new, so having more than one or various types involved is an obvious use. Using anything you've ever seen clickable on a web page as input is an obvious possibility which would certainly support many different varieties of question response mode, style or appearance. Having various types of input styles certainly predates web software. Apples FileMaker database product goes way back (Apple bought it in early days). A great variety of educational apps and styles were seen with the Apple Hypercard product, which supported web-like linking between "stacks" although it wasn't across a net at that time. However the ability to tie multiple things made by different people together was there. Since users created those hypercard stacks, and endless variety of educational inputs and outputs was possible. If you wanted a "moo" or picture of a bottle of milk when you clicked on a cows tit, no problem.
There used to be a mailing list for ADBI/O user discussion groups. I'm not sure if archives are out there somewhere. The product was discontinued after Apple went USB. It had seen use in a great variety of applications from industrial, to sales / museum kiosk interactivity, to education.
With the scriptability of Applications within Mac OS, there was no requirement to have custom apps to be able to use different types of input. The OS and third-party apps also supported a wide variety of things to aid interface with people having various types and degree of disabilities. Speech recognition tied to scripting was supported too. Even in the 90's it was easy to set Mac OS so you could say "computer show me porn" and have a slideshow start.
Using various types of clickers as input for standard or custom software is nothing new. Just ask the person doing the weather at your local tv station. (I suspect Steve Jobs has a clicker or two in use during those great keynote presentations
It's really absurd that an OS / app / platform developer should be able to patent the things users come up with as uses for computers. I do think more tools for user app creativity should be provided. What will get kids to take an early interest in programming. Imagine a simple we