I was a bit disappointed by the article. I was hoping it would mention some specifics...for example will the PDSN's for 3G handoff IPs from a common pool to the WiFi system, etc. Maybe, though, I'm looking to micro level too deep for a cross platform system that hands off point of connection's for non-changing IP addresses. Meaning, I could drive across town, changing points of connection without any applications breaking or having to renew an IP.
The other problem is this is Nortel. Give me Lucent any day of the week as a switch engineer. Nortel DMS systems are a pain in the arse.
I had experiences close to this guy. I decided to get a Software Engineering degree after about 5 years experience as a Sun network and system admin. I could write scipts to do tasks, been dabling in languages since BASIC in elementary school (early 80s), and owned a computer since I was 13 (1983).
The prereq classes went ok, but after getting into the program I was extremely disappointed. I've got many years of academia, and also had an assignment as a Special Duty (assignment) instructor teaching GPS in the Air Force. I authored an accredited, collegiate level course from scratch, with a great deal of help from academic advisors. What I observed were instructors with no knowledge of the topic, slides that were direct from the publisher, syllabus cut and pasted from previous semesters and other academic shortcuts. The one professor who obviously was involved in his field and took the time to create a syllabus that prepared the student for real software engineering work was being kicked out for, according to the school's dean, being "too geeky". I couldn't believe I was hearing this.
Just to further illustrate my point, the database class was taught by someone with a PHD in education, but never touched a database or could even structure an ODBC request. Java was dropped the previous year as one classes' prereq, yet the first class he expected us to be programming Java, and threw an O'Reilly _reference book_ as a textbook for an intro class. I love O'Reilly books, but reference books by them are meant for people who already have a good grasp of the subject. Finally, the software testing professor couldn't get the.NET studio to load well into the 3rd week of class. Classes are only 4 weeks long, and our final grade was over 50% weighted on getting a program to work in the.NET lab. I couldn't wait and got my home computer working and asked if it would suffice (since at the time he still couldn't get the lab to work). He didn't remember saying it was ok for screenshots and I got a B while people who just downloaded from ASP.net and read narratives from webpages got an A.
Keep in mind...this was all in a grad school. I dropped the program out of disgust even though I only had 3 or 4 classes left.
I bet you money they (the execs) used to drive old beat up cars in high school, with tape decks. In the tape decks were dubbed tapes with their favortite tunes recorded from FM radio or friends. Although it's nice to associate music with property (and the theft of such), but it's simply something people have been doing for decades.
If you liked it, you went out and bought it. Now before you say, "Yeah, but digital lasts forever". Nope, CDs get scratched, p0rn sites unleash system infecting bots to delete, etc.
It seems every measure to stop phishing, spam and the like, just results in a means to circumvent. I'm not against renewing efforts to re-engineer, but I'm not sure it's fruitful to go after it for those reasons. IPv6 is a moderate step in that direction and is worth giving a chance.
IDtenT...spent more time trying to deny us than it takes to just go around. Hmmm..
Cut (Control C)....1 second
Alt Tab...2 seconds (too many things open)
Paste (Control V)....1 second
Looking like an idiot in front of 10,000+ viewers for no reason than to look like an idiot... timeless
-1 for misuse of.htaccess
"Risk Reduction Phase" is acquisitions speak for, 'we're getting ideas and picking which concepts meet our needs the best'. I recognize the network as being used for voice or remote satellite operations. So they must be seeing the need down the road to use IP for communicating with satellites or users. I don't think you'd use it with the moon (probably a joke but if you were serious...) because the geo sync will always have a common point over the earth (hence the name) but be moving relative to the moon. You'd have Lunar eclipse periods where no comm is possible. Same problem with deep space missions, such as Mars or the recent moon landing they had (not our moon, one of Saturn's).
Sounds cool. Combines my two worlds of IT and satellites.
Blaming the business schools seems hardly productive. The business schools are people who teach common doctrine, just as science and arts schools. Do you blame the art schools if everyone seems to like a certain style of art?
The only reason people use some of these terms is to identify exactly what it is they are doing. I own a tanning salon. I have services (expoure to UV, or use of a UV-free booth) and products (lotions, etc). I have an MBA, but I don't tell the customers (never called one a consumer) "Hi Consumer, to make our services better use our products". I listen to their needs and then offer a lotion that adds to the experience of getting a tan. In my other job, I am a tech support manager for a manufacturer. In some cases I say consumer, but it's because our "customers" can be consumers (end users, if you will), dealers, distributors or other manufacturers who OEM our products. Saying customer would be helplessly vague.
Gettin back on topic, I agree with the change in attitude. The successful businesses pay attention to what their customers place value upon and act. You can have the latest and greatest, but if the consumer doesn't value your goods or services...you are doomed to become a commodity or go away. (There, there's you biz school speak).
Next we'll see a book on WHY Kerry should have beat Bush. Just friggin let it go. Jobs will always migrate from one area to another. I don't see any former crop pickers bitchin pissin and moaning about migrant workers here in SoCal. Figure out a new area to be within and act upon your plan...
But ya gotta think that there's a certain amount of satisfaction knowing a spammer is watching his tail in a cell somewhere, wondering, "Has he bought any of my warez such as Viagra and a penis enlargement?" Oh...yes, it's going to be a very looooong night (don't call the doctor for erections lasting longer than 4 hours).
Very true. I'm in the Space and Missile field in the Air Force and read the article. My response is, "This is news? It's old and not correct."
The funny thing is all these "self appointed" experts saying, "See Bush is evil...blah blah blah" and "We've pulled out of every other treaty". Both are completely false. We are not out of Geneva and it was CLINTON, yeah baby, CLINTON who initiated the CURRENT effort to looking into new methods of space superiority. Why do you think Bush, at the outset, looked into the ABM treaty? The system was already started and past Key Milestones in the Acquisition Process (KDP-A, etc).
Yes, India now has nukes and you have to consider them for defense. Iran was a friend too, until a certain Shaw took over in the Carter-era. Pakistan and India are hotbeds and you want both to be friends, but remember their population is close to a boiling point, much as Iran was.
We all use space. So people need to calm down. Debris fields will take out satellites, no matter the origin. Meaning, if we start blowing $hit up we also negate our own ability to exploit space. Imagine if every aircraft shot down, or every boat sank was still (floating) at the spot it was within, when it was destroyed during war or peacetime. Navigating channels, especially Pearl Harbor and flying across Europe would be an extreme challenge with all the crap in the way. This is what happens in space. Nothing "settles", floats, sinks or jumps out of the way. This is why inhibiting technologies, such as the laser and other jammers, are the path we are very likely to pursue. Air Force and other military leaders (SECDEF) know and understand this. Honestly, our technology is getting to the point where we don't need to "Blow $hit up" to negate a satellite.
Are you aware we're bombarded with millions of tons of radioactive energy every day? The sunspots you see mentioned during periods of communications failures are trapped plasma in the sun (the conversion of helium) which is then followed by a release from a solar flare. The earth has a bow shock which deflects a great deal of the solar energy from the Earth itself, but it's still exposed nonetheless. Just as the nuclear energy from the sun is absorbed and dissipated by the atmosphere (exosphere, ionosphere, mesosphere, stratosphere, troposhphere, etc), a nuclear satellite could be engineered to do the same. In other words, nothing would survive re-entry.
However, as part of friendly treaties, it's very highly unlikely anything low orbit would be nuclear. Given the short life span of current satellites, there really isn't a need. However, deep space and other orbits that go through long periods of darkness will be viable for nuclear power. Thus, these missions do not put the earth at risk because it's thousands of miles away and has no chance of de-orbiting.
This just leaves the spacelift as a risk. We're getting pretty reliable, but nothing in life is fool proof. I think people use Chernobyl to scare people through ignorance. So, for the near future all you have to do is say, "3 Mile" or "Chernobyl" and people will be scared. Unfortunatly, fuzzy science and emotion often dictate science and development. Just look at stem cell research.
Getting back to your post, if you're referring to debris at the bottom of the ocean. There's already huge sources of energy released there by molten and other underwater geological occurances where the ocean is exposed to nasty stuff. As far as the atmosphere, yes, we all share it. Nuclear testing in the Nevada desert has been shown to have effects across the earth. However, this isn't the context of the current discussion. The fallout from a satellite or aborted rocket launch is marginally minimal when compared to other sources of pollution (both natural and manmade).
Finally, from the research I've seen the only resistence to radiation built up is death.
This is why we don't launch over populated land masses, like the Russians did (and do). I believe there were some radioactive elements on board the Shuttles, but when it all falls deep in the ocean it's as bad. OK, not as bad for the human population. That said, don't forget it did spew a great deal of rocket fuel which is really nasty stuff. Solid rocket fuel, once lit, will not extinguish, even underwater. Again, though, we plan for these things in launching and mitigate their risks. There will be nuclear power in space in future systems. Right now there's too much baggage to make it viable anyway. Nuclear creates a lot of heat which makes heat dissipation a dominating reason to not use it with current technology.
The Pegasus does just that. It is primarily launched in the Pacific, and is prepped at Vandenberg AFB, CA. I was taken through their facilities about a month ago. They have two built and ready to go (one with a mated payload). The downside is their payload capacity. They can only lift a vehicle up to 1000lb in weight. There is an optional 4th stage (liquid fuel), but that's for higher or more eliptical orbits.
It's acutally quite cool. It's three stages of solid fueled rockets, mounted under a huge composite Delta wing. One thing I noticed was a dropoff in these being launched. I'm not sure if there are other, better alternatives, but their launch schedule is really slow nowadays. About one per year is lauched now (according to their director).
they will fill out the remaining weight with ballast, typically water
What? Where did you hear this? The cost for every pound of payload weight is around $10,000+. As an example, the Pegasus saved several hundred thousand in costs by making the Delta wing stronger with lighter mounting. If the payload is lighter, they just vary the build of the grain (solid) of the rocket fuel or load less liquid fuel. This is part of the reason we use "staging", to drop weight as the missile gets higher, plus the fact nozzles change efficiency with altitude. Also, any extra material becomes a ballistic projectile in space, so they're not going to load up "junk" or water just to occupy space/weight. This is why we've slightly changed the way pyrotechnic bolts and rods/springs work with release payloads, seperating upper stages, deploy solar arrays, etc. Believe me, there's already too much crap to track up there.
Maybe the MPAA or RIAA can give him some pointers next time. The irony, IMHO, is that the unethical act was sabotaged by his own peers being unethical.
Besides that, the GUI did have a good look and feel to it (from the screenshot included). Maybe that with his C skills he may overcome this. Right now, If I were him, I'd just hope I didn't get charged with a crime.
Honestly, though, I think a lot of us with a lot of free time, who grew up with computers did some comparable things in our youth. It's just too bad that mischeif nowadays is so easily ramped up to a felony.
Good post with accurate info. As a former enlisted GPS satellite operator, I cringe when I see GPS maligned or not quoted correctly. I just met yesterday a Colonel who worked in the Program Office at LA Air Force Base that acquired most of the GPS satellites up today. The newer satellites (GPS that is) will start offering more features for military and civilian benefit (seperately).
I just finished Officer Space Prerequisite Training, which all Missile and Space officers in the Air Force have to attend (and soon to be renamed Space 100). They were talking about ELF as a means to signal subs for nuclear responses during a time of war. So it's interesting to see it on Slashdot a couple days later. I'm going to contact my instructors and see if I can't get the skinny on the new system.
Yeah, a good explanation. As a former GPS Satellite operator, who was also a Sprint PCS Engineer for the backoffice equipment, I've got experience in both arenas. The FCC mandate, as you stated didn't spell out a solution but rather a result. The carriers need to be able to provide a location. There are two solutions the carriers got from their equipment providers (primarily Lucent, Nortel, Motorola and a couple others). Network based ranging, where the towers track your position, and phone based, where the "GPS Enabled" phone reports its own location. Last I heard, GSM favored network based but it didn't work well in application. The default winner for ease of use and quick rollout was a phone based tracking.
I always cringe when I hear references to "GPS Tracking people". I think we even got a call on our operations floor (2nd Satellite Operations Squadron, Shreiver AFB, CO) once from a lady wanting to know why we were tracking her.
Back to the parent post. The irony of the FCC mandate is it didn't provide funding or direction for cities to implement it. So we rolled out this huge system nationwide, with only two or three towns across the entire US that had the equipment to RECEIVE the position. This may have changed since, but I'd bet most towns still dont have it.
I know your post is modded off topic, but it's not really that far off. There was a beautiful launch pad built at Vandenberg AFB, called SLC-6 ("SLICK6"). However its never been used. There are two unofficial reasons, and the tin foil hats have a 3rd. The pad was an alternate in case the shuttle couldn't launch from Cape Canaveral, and also from back when it was envisioned we'd be putting up one a month. Digressing a bit, there was a point in time where all US DoD satellites were to be "Shuttle compatible" for launching. Well after the first disaster, the DoD decided relying on civilians was a bad idea. So the pad didn't need to be used. The second reason was mechanical. It's believed the sound waves bouncing back from the moutain range might create enough disruption to make a launch unsafe (for the shuttle). The tin foil hats also point to the story it's built on an Indian burial ground and is jynxed.
Hey, that's a good spot I didnt even think of, which is funny because I often took my sportbike up that road. I think there's a launch in September, so I'll have to check it out. I'm there for Space and Missile training. Kinda funny to see a/. article on it while I'm there.
I was in a hurry, yes, its 7/10/11. I was typing while listening to a lecture on Web Services in my Applied Software Engineering class. You may work for Verizon, but everyone uses the same gear. You're running either a Lucent 5ESS (wireless), Nortel DMS (100/250/etc). There are others but less used. Two of my former co-workers work for Verizon in Southern California. They order new T1s and I think they do provisioning (she's not responding to IM right now). Telco is a very small world, you should have friends working for TMobile, Verizon, Nextel, Sprint, etc, if you've been in the biz for more than a year.
Business owners are very wary of switching, but from a technological standpoint you might be right. Sprint used the same gear you're using, but you'll notice they're waiting to roll with it. They actually have had it working for over a year. How do I know? I managed the local office server that converts the T1 from the switch into the Ethernet-based traffic (Sun Netra T1120 server, running Solaris 8, as a Packet Control Function application). The problem with the network approach is latency. Nextel uses dedicated circuits going to a Dispatch Application Server(DAP). These are nailed down connections from the Base Site Controller, into the DAP. The connections have been changed a bit since they rolled out nationwide two-way (or nationwide "DirectConnect"), but they don't have the latency that everyone else's system has.
Will this be an issue? Nextel says yes, Verizon says no....Sprint has publicly been quiet because they want to solve the problem, not make excuses. (This is also why they could have been first to market with 3G, but chose to launch nationwide all at once).
The "do you hear me now" guys are with ALL wireless carriers. Nextel has them, Sprint has them. Some have specific drive teams, some carriers inlude it with the RF Engineering group (the group that manages the cellular tower RF). Verizon just chose to make it a marketing tool.
I'm not sure where you get the "Stole the phone" bit from. Nextel is Motorola licensed. Meaning, Motorola owns rights to the iDen network, and Nextel buys the rights as a "turnkey" system. You can't go buy a Verizon phone and get on the Nextel cellular plan. Besides the obvious technological reasons (CDMA v TDMA v GSM), the network is different.
Ummm...newsflash....ALL CARRIERS are known to have shitty service, plans, phones... This is why every survey shows it as the thing people hate the most, but can't live without. Go look up the consumer complaint stats...everyone is in the same boat. Hence, my original post, which said phones are becoming a commodity.
[grammar police=off] I got a job at Nextel right out of the Air Force, and enjoyed learning the technology. Nextel had a great niche with the wireless 2-way, and a lead on the competition. However, I worked for an overbearing boss and they didn't do diddly squat for training.
Sprint PCS wooed me away with training. I finished my MBA while working at Sprint, and they started sending me to classes. I learned all about wireless, packet data, network admin, etc. But the more I looked into the business itself, the more strongly I believed there is no way they couldn't fall into becoming a commodity. For the uninitiated, a commodity means consumers really don't recognize a brand as distinguishing. Walk down a toothpaste aisle, and you'll see a market kicking and screaming to NOT become a commodity (when after all, it's all just PASTE).
The words were there and the media hype came out in droves during 2.5 G (circuit switched data, 56k max) and 3 G (packet data, games, cameras, etc). However, I knew from my days at Nextel, that consumers were fickle and really just looked at the bottom line. I had a VP at Nextel explain it this way, 80% of the market are consumers, yet they're 20% of the revenue. If you hike the price they jump to a competitor. The business niche will not jump because of the costs of switching, plus they're 80% of the revenue.
If you look at Revenue per User (RPU), Nextel has been leading every year, without exception, since wireless started taking off.
So what does that leave the competition with? Consumers who drive up costs by: Switching, calling customer service, wanting new phones, etc etc.. My source of prices are quite old, but I'll approximate the costs from the late 90s. The cell phone cost the original manufacturer about $800 to build (R&D, manufacturing, etc). The sell it to the carriers for about $500. The carrier in turn sells it to you for $250. So the carrier and manufacturer are banking $550 of goodwill.
From the consumer's standpoint, they really don't care who their service provider is. They just want to dial 7/9/10 digits (don't dial 1, the switch just strips it off...dial using 7 or 9 digits) and hear a human voice at the other end. More importantly, they want the call to stay up. So the phone doesn't matter, nor the service. This is a receipe for a commodity. Now factor in there are 5 or 6 players in the market. Each has identical networks that costs billions to manage. Imagine if you had 5 runs of twisted pair, from 5 local telephone companies, running into your house. One will make money, while the other 4 lie dormant. It's not a straight analogy, but my point is that the market can't bear these many providers.
This is why you saw the mergers around 1999/2000. I really think we need one or two more for efficiency reasons. However, even with a merger, it's still becoming a commodity with intense pressure to keep costs down. In my opinion, wireless is heading down the dead end which the wirelines are already going down.... [/police]
In accounting we'd go over cases of corporate buy outs and study guys where the company was diced. The one exception to this rule is Microsoft. Meaning, most companies that slow down in innovation and have a huge hoard of cash get bought by leveraging against their equity. I walk up to Joe Sleez banking and say, "Loan me $4 Billion to buy Microsoft, which has $3.8B in cash, $100M in Accounts Receivable, and misc in other assets. You buy the company and dice it up and sell off the parts. Similar to a car, the parts can be worth more than the car as a whole. Plus, you never leveraged a dime of your own money.
Many firms have poision pills and other defensive postures against this aggressive practice, but I've always been surprised no one has tried to buy and dismantle M$. I was also surprised they never paid a dividend, as its a psychological move for investors. Then again, most people aren't buying M$ for a diversified, low-risk retirement portfoilo.
Coming around to the specific topic of timing, it certainly makes sense that the tax code is encouraging it. If you're netting over 7% leaving it alone, why pull out retained earnings to have a cut taken out of it? When I saw they had cash doing nothing (ok...mortgage backed securities) and were keeping ahead of the risk-free rate (rate of a 10 year bond), it's a no brainer to leave it in Microsoft's bank account. I'd almost say you're better off telling them to dividend re-invest. You avoid the taxable income, increase your holdings, and benefit more from the impending stock buy back.
I really hate M$ for its predatory marketing practices and $hitty products, but from an investing standpoint it's hard to hate them.
I came from Sprint, where they provided ISDN lines. I did end up telling them to turn it off, and used my own cable to VPN in. However, it was my choice. I had co-workers that expensed it, and that worked great for everyone.
But getting to my Subject Line - Throw this at the VP (or whomever)... How can you ever expect to have an accurate Income / Expense sheet when you are shifting business costs to the workers? You're actually doing a disservice to the shareholders, because they're going to look at the bottom line. They will see smaller (or marginally decreasing) expenses related to reoccurring expenses, and think management is getting more effcient. This works great until the expenses get uncovered somehow (people quit, get a union involved, contact congressional representatives who then ask questions, etc).
To be very frank, bosses like this bury a company. It shows leadership is willing to be unethical to increase margins. As a MBA with 10+ years of network & telecom and military leadership training, I'd say the ship is sinking and it's time for you to get out.
Slashdot Mirror
The other problem is this is Nortel. Give me Lucent any day of the week as a switch engineer. Nortel DMS systems are a pain in the arse.
The prereq classes went ok, but after getting into the program I was extremely disappointed. I've got many years of academia, and also had an assignment as a Special Duty (assignment) instructor teaching GPS in the Air Force. I authored an accredited, collegiate level course from scratch, with a great deal of help from academic advisors. What I observed were instructors with no knowledge of the topic, slides that were direct from the publisher, syllabus cut and pasted from previous semesters and other academic shortcuts. The one professor who obviously was involved in his field and took the time to create a syllabus that prepared the student for real software engineering work was being kicked out for, according to the school's dean, being "too geeky". I couldn't believe I was hearing this.
Just to further illustrate my point, the database class was taught by someone with a PHD in education, but never touched a database or could even structure an ODBC request. Java was dropped the previous year as one classes' prereq, yet the first class he expected us to be programming Java, and threw an O'Reilly _reference book_ as a textbook for an intro class. I love O'Reilly books, but reference books by them are meant for people who already have a good grasp of the subject. Finally, the software testing professor couldn't get the .NET studio to load well into the 3rd week of class. Classes are only 4 weeks long, and our final grade was over 50% weighted on getting a program to work in the .NET lab. I couldn't wait and got my home computer working and asked if it would suffice (since at the time he still couldn't get the lab to work). He didn't remember saying it was ok for screenshots and I got a B while people who just downloaded from ASP.net and read narratives from webpages got an A.
Keep in mind...this was all in a grad school. I dropped the program out of disgust even though I only had 3 or 4 classes left.
If you liked it, you went out and bought it. Now before you say, "Yeah, but digital lasts forever". Nope, CDs get scratched, p0rn sites unleash system infecting bots to delete, etc.
It seems every measure to stop phishing, spam and the like, just results in a means to circumvent. I'm not against renewing efforts to re-engineer, but I'm not sure it's fruitful to go after it for those reasons. IPv6 is a moderate step in that direction and is worth giving a chance.
IDtenT...spent more time trying to deny us than it takes to just go around. Hmmm.. Cut (Control C) ....1 second
Alt Tab...2 seconds (too many things open)
Paste (Control V) ....1 second
Looking like an idiot in front of 10,000+ viewers for no reason than to look like an idiot... timeless
-1 for misuse of .htaccess
Sounds cool. Combines my two worlds of IT and satellites.
The only reason people use some of these terms is to identify exactly what it is they are doing. I own a tanning salon. I have services (expoure to UV, or use of a UV-free booth) and products (lotions, etc). I have an MBA, but I don't tell the customers (never called one a consumer) "Hi Consumer, to make our services better use our products". I listen to their needs and then offer a lotion that adds to the experience of getting a tan. In my other job, I am a tech support manager for a manufacturer. In some cases I say consumer, but it's because our "customers" can be consumers (end users, if you will), dealers, distributors or other manufacturers who OEM our products. Saying customer would be helplessly vague.
Gettin back on topic, I agree with the change in attitude. The successful businesses pay attention to what their customers place value upon and act. You can have the latest and greatest, but if the consumer doesn't value your goods or services...you are doomed to become a commodity or go away. (There, there's you biz school speak).
I think he really quit because I finally configured to just delete spam since the false positive rate on Thunderbird is now really low for me :)
Think of all the small penises (peni?) there will now be...
But ya gotta think that there's a certain amount of satisfaction knowing a spammer is watching his tail in a cell somewhere, wondering, "Has he bought any of my warez such as Viagra and a penis enlargement?" Oh...yes, it's going to be a very looooong night (don't call the doctor for erections lasting longer than 4 hours).
The funny thing is all these "self appointed" experts saying, "See Bush is evil...blah blah blah" and "We've pulled out of every other treaty". Both are completely false. We are not out of Geneva and it was CLINTON, yeah baby, CLINTON who initiated the CURRENT effort to looking into new methods of space superiority. Why do you think Bush, at the outset, looked into the ABM treaty? The system was already started and past Key Milestones in the Acquisition Process (KDP-A, etc).
Yes, India now has nukes and you have to consider them for defense. Iran was a friend too, until a certain Shaw took over in the Carter-era. Pakistan and India are hotbeds and you want both to be friends, but remember their population is close to a boiling point, much as Iran was.
We all use space. So people need to calm down. Debris fields will take out satellites, no matter the origin. Meaning, if we start blowing $hit up we also negate our own ability to exploit space. Imagine if every aircraft shot down, or every boat sank was still (floating) at the spot it was within, when it was destroyed during war or peacetime. Navigating channels, especially Pearl Harbor and flying across Europe would be an extreme challenge with all the crap in the way. This is what happens in space. Nothing "settles", floats, sinks or jumps out of the way. This is why inhibiting technologies, such as the laser and other jammers, are the path we are very likely to pursue. Air Force and other military leaders (SECDEF) know and understand this. Honestly, our technology is getting to the point where we don't need to "Blow $hit up" to negate a satellite.
However, as part of friendly treaties, it's very highly unlikely anything low orbit would be nuclear. Given the short life span of current satellites, there really isn't a need. However, deep space and other orbits that go through long periods of darkness will be viable for nuclear power. Thus, these missions do not put the earth at risk because it's thousands of miles away and has no chance of de-orbiting.
This just leaves the spacelift as a risk. We're getting pretty reliable, but nothing in life is fool proof. I think people use Chernobyl to scare people through ignorance. So, for the near future all you have to do is say, "3 Mile" or "Chernobyl" and people will be scared. Unfortunatly, fuzzy science and emotion often dictate science and development. Just look at stem cell research.
Getting back to your post, if you're referring to debris at the bottom of the ocean. There's already huge sources of energy released there by molten and other underwater geological occurances where the ocean is exposed to nasty stuff. As far as the atmosphere, yes, we all share it. Nuclear testing in the Nevada desert has been shown to have effects across the earth. However, this isn't the context of the current discussion. The fallout from a satellite or aborted rocket launch is marginally minimal when compared to other sources of pollution (both natural and manmade).
Finally, from the research I've seen the only resistence to radiation built up is death.
This is why we don't launch over populated land masses, like the Russians did (and do). I believe there were some radioactive elements on board the Shuttles, but when it all falls deep in the ocean it's as bad. OK, not as bad for the human population. That said, don't forget it did spew a great deal of rocket fuel which is really nasty stuff. Solid rocket fuel, once lit, will not extinguish, even underwater. Again, though, we plan for these things in launching and mitigate their risks. There will be nuclear power in space in future systems. Right now there's too much baggage to make it viable anyway. Nuclear creates a lot of heat which makes heat dissipation a dominating reason to not use it with current technology.
It's acutally quite cool. It's three stages of solid fueled rockets, mounted under a huge composite Delta wing. One thing I noticed was a dropoff in these being launched. I'm not sure if there are other, better alternatives, but their launch schedule is really slow nowadays. About one per year is lauched now (according to their director).
What? Where did you hear this? The cost for every pound of payload weight is around $10,000+. As an example, the Pegasus saved several hundred thousand in costs by making the Delta wing stronger with lighter mounting. If the payload is lighter, they just vary the build of the grain (solid) of the rocket fuel or load less liquid fuel. This is part of the reason we use "staging", to drop weight as the missile gets higher, plus the fact nozzles change efficiency with altitude. Also, any extra material becomes a ballistic projectile in space, so they're not going to load up "junk" or water just to occupy space/weight. This is why we've slightly changed the way pyrotechnic bolts and rods/springs work with release payloads, seperating upper stages, deploy solar arrays, etc. Believe me, there's already too much crap to track up there.
John (13C, Space and Missile Officer)
Besides that, the GUI did have a good look and feel to it (from the screenshot included). Maybe that with his C skills he may overcome this. Right now, If I were him, I'd just hope I didn't get charged with a crime.
Honestly, though, I think a lot of us with a lot of free time, who grew up with computers did some comparable things in our youth. It's just too bad that mischeif nowadays is so easily ramped up to a felony.
I just finished Officer Space Prerequisite Training, which all Missile and Space officers in the Air Force have to attend (and soon to be renamed Space 100). They were talking about ELF as a means to signal subs for nuclear responses during a time of war. So it's interesting to see it on Slashdot a couple days later. I'm going to contact my instructors and see if I can't get the skinny on the new system.
I always cringe when I hear references to "GPS Tracking people". I think we even got a call on our operations floor (2nd Satellite Operations Squadron, Shreiver AFB, CO) once from a lady wanting to know why we were tracking her.
Back to the parent post. The irony of the FCC mandate is it didn't provide funding or direction for cities to implement it. So we rolled out this huge system nationwide, with only two or three towns across the entire US that had the equipment to RECEIVE the position. This may have changed since, but I'd bet most towns still dont have it.
I know your post is modded off topic, but it's not really that far off. There was a beautiful launch pad built at Vandenberg AFB, called SLC-6 ("SLICK6"). However its never been used. There are two unofficial reasons, and the tin foil hats have a 3rd. The pad was an alternate in case the shuttle couldn't launch from Cape Canaveral, and also from back when it was envisioned we'd be putting up one a month. Digressing a bit, there was a point in time where all US DoD satellites were to be "Shuttle compatible" for launching. Well after the first disaster, the DoD decided relying on civilians was a bad idea. So the pad didn't need to be used. The second reason was mechanical. It's believed the sound waves bouncing back from the moutain range might create enough disruption to make a launch unsafe (for the shuttle). The tin foil hats also point to the story it's built on an Indian burial ground and is jynxed.
Hey, that's a good spot I didnt even think of, which is funny because I often took my sportbike up that road. I think there's a launch in September, so I'll have to check it out. I'm there for Space and Missile training. Kinda funny to see a /. article on it while I'm there.
Business owners are very wary of switching, but from a technological standpoint you might be right. Sprint used the same gear you're using, but you'll notice they're waiting to roll with it. They actually have had it working for over a year. How do I know? I managed the local office server that converts the T1 from the switch into the Ethernet-based traffic (Sun Netra T1120 server, running Solaris 8, as a Packet Control Function application). The problem with the network approach is latency. Nextel uses dedicated circuits going to a Dispatch Application Server(DAP). These are nailed down connections from the Base Site Controller, into the DAP. The connections have been changed a bit since they rolled out nationwide two-way (or nationwide "DirectConnect"), but they don't have the latency that everyone else's system has.
Will this be an issue? Nextel says yes, Verizon says no....Sprint has publicly been quiet because they want to solve the problem, not make excuses. (This is also why they could have been first to market with 3G, but chose to launch nationwide all at once).
The "do you hear me now" guys are with ALL wireless carriers. Nextel has them, Sprint has them. Some have specific drive teams, some carriers inlude it with the RF Engineering group (the group that manages the cellular tower RF). Verizon just chose to make it a marketing tool.
I'm not sure where you get the "Stole the phone" bit from. Nextel is Motorola licensed. Meaning, Motorola owns rights to the iDen network, and Nextel buys the rights as a "turnkey" system. You can't go buy a Verizon phone and get on the Nextel cellular plan. Besides the obvious technological reasons (CDMA v TDMA v GSM), the network is different.
Ummm...newsflash....ALL CARRIERS are known to have shitty service, plans, phones... This is why every survey shows it as the thing people hate the most, but can't live without. Go look up the consumer complaint stats...everyone is in the same boat. Hence, my original post, which said phones are becoming a commodity.
John
PS. You left your stupidity police on.
I got a job at Nextel right out of the Air Force, and enjoyed learning the technology. Nextel had a great niche with the wireless 2-way, and a lead on the competition. However, I worked for an overbearing boss and they didn't do diddly squat for training.
Sprint PCS wooed me away with training. I finished my MBA while working at Sprint, and they started sending me to classes. I learned all about wireless, packet data, network admin, etc. But the more I looked into the business itself, the more strongly I believed there is no way they couldn't fall into becoming a commodity. For the uninitiated, a commodity means consumers really don't recognize a brand as distinguishing. Walk down a toothpaste aisle, and you'll see a market kicking and screaming to NOT become a commodity (when after all, it's all just PASTE).
The words were there and the media hype came out in droves during 2.5 G (circuit switched data, 56k max) and 3 G (packet data, games, cameras, etc). However, I knew from my days at Nextel, that consumers were fickle and really just looked at the bottom line. I had a VP at Nextel explain it this way, 80% of the market are consumers, yet they're 20% of the revenue. If you hike the price they jump to a competitor. The business niche will not jump because of the costs of switching, plus they're 80% of the revenue.
If you look at Revenue per User (RPU), Nextel has been leading every year, without exception, since wireless started taking off. So what does that leave the competition with? Consumers who drive up costs by: Switching, calling customer service, wanting new phones, etc etc.. My source of prices are quite old, but I'll approximate the costs from the late 90s. The cell phone cost the original manufacturer about $800 to build (R&D, manufacturing, etc). The sell it to the carriers for about $500. The carrier in turn sells it to you for $250. So the carrier and manufacturer are banking $550 of goodwill.
From the consumer's standpoint, they really don't care who their service provider is. They just want to dial 7/9/10 digits (don't dial 1, the switch just strips it off...dial using 7 or 9 digits) and hear a human voice at the other end. More importantly, they want the call to stay up. So the phone doesn't matter, nor the service. This is a receipe for a commodity. Now factor in there are 5 or 6 players in the market. Each has identical networks that costs billions to manage. Imagine if you had 5 runs of twisted pair, from 5 local telephone companies, running into your house. One will make money, while the other 4 lie dormant. It's not a straight analogy, but my point is that the market can't bear these many providers.
This is why you saw the mergers around 1999/2000. I really think we need one or two more for efficiency reasons. However, even with a merger, it's still becoming a commodity with intense pressure to keep costs down. In my opinion, wireless is heading down the dead end which the wirelines are already going down....
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Many firms have poision pills and other defensive postures against this aggressive practice, but I've always been surprised no one has tried to buy and dismantle M$. I was also surprised they never paid a dividend, as its a psychological move for investors. Then again, most people aren't buying M$ for a diversified, low-risk retirement portfoilo.
Coming around to the specific topic of timing, it certainly makes sense that the tax code is encouraging it. If you're netting over 7% leaving it alone, why pull out retained earnings to have a cut taken out of it? When I saw they had cash doing nothing (ok...mortgage backed securities) and were keeping ahead of the risk-free rate (rate of a 10 year bond), it's a no brainer to leave it in Microsoft's bank account. I'd almost say you're better off telling them to dividend re-invest. You avoid the taxable income, increase your holdings, and benefit more from the impending stock buy back.
I really hate M$ for its predatory marketing practices and $hitty products, but from an investing standpoint it's hard to hate them.
But getting to my Subject Line - Throw this at the VP (or whomever)... How can you ever expect to have an accurate Income / Expense sheet when you are shifting business costs to the workers? You're actually doing a disservice to the shareholders, because they're going to look at the bottom line. They will see smaller (or marginally decreasing) expenses related to reoccurring expenses, and think management is getting more effcient. This works great until the expenses get uncovered somehow (people quit, get a union involved, contact congressional representatives who then ask questions, etc).
To be very frank, bosses like this bury a company. It shows leadership is willing to be unethical to increase margins. As a MBA with 10+ years of network & telecom and military leadership training, I'd say the ship is sinking and it's time for you to get out.