Both of these invole efforts to directly image extrasolar planets, which allows for the tantalizing possibility of finding life directly. With the wobble method, you can only tell that a body of a given mass is present at a given distance. With direct observation we could tell such things as the exact size of the planet, presence of any moons (watching the light curve for lunar transits), and, most exciting, atmospheric composition. If we were to find free oxygen in the atmosphere of a planet, it would finally be definite proof of life outside Earth. No other natural chemical process is capable of releasing oxygen in sufficient quantity to make up a substantial portion of a planet's atmosphere.
Having been in Munich, Germany soon after the explosion at Chernobyl, I admit that when I first saw this article it had me a bit worried. I still remember watching the news on AFN (Armed Forces Network) saying there was no danger, then turning to a local station to see a large red area right over Munich with a warning to stay out of the rain if at all possible. Despite this, I think that nuclear power is the safest, cleanest, most efficient method for generating electricity that we currently have. If the Ukraine needs to bring the rest of the plant online to kick-start their industrial capacity, more power to them! (no pun intended) Solar power is not anywhere near the efficiency level it needs to be at to provide electricity on a commercial scale. Wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power all require very specific geography, and are still not as efficient as nuclear power. Fossil fuels are an idea whose time should have ended somewhere in the '50s. Fusion is still highly experimental and has not yet breached that elusive 1:>1 input/output power ratio. Fission-based reactors are proven technology. The reason, IMHO, that it is not more widely used is that incidents like Chernobyl and TMI tend to bring into people's minds the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We see pictures of people horribly scarred by radiation, and are irrationally afraid that a commercial reactor can do the same. Yes, the waste produced is rather more toxic than anything else, but there is far less of it, and it is produced with far less frequency. (Anybody have figures on how often a commercial reactor needs refueling?) For those people calling for money to be sent to the Ukraine instead of letting them bring this back online, I say let's send over a few competent nuclear technicians to help them bring it back up safely. And, for those who think that while I might advocate nuclear power, I wouldn't want it near my house, I say I'd like to have one _in_ my house. (Let's see anyone beat a nuclear reactor in a Geek Toy DSW) Seriously, I have no problem with the Ukraine bringing Chernobyl back online, as long as it is done safely.
The date given for the filing is April 18, 1997. This is long after the beginning of GIMPS in January, 1996. Long before Intel even filed for a patent on this exact sort of computing. Perhaps George Woltman, spokesman of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, has a case against Intel for theft of intellectual property.
Considering that the company I work for maintains a national 2.5Gbps POS ring, I don't see how 2.4Gbps is faster. Maybe 2.4>2.5 for sufficiently large values of 2.4, but I doubt that this is the case. While many areas do indeed have multi-gig circuits coming in, they are usually broken up into smaller circuits. In our case, we keep it at 2.5Gbps all the way around the ring. And, since we use packet over SONET, there's almost nothing lost to overhead. I really don't see how 2.4Gbps can claim to be the fastest.
From my point of view, the main problem with trying to force a cable company to "open up its lines" is that these lines are nothing like telco lines. The reason that you can choose your local telco is that there is a single pair of wires running from your house to the CO, and those wires can be moved from Company A's switch to Company B's switch with relatively few problems. In a cable system, however, the individualized wire only runs about 100 feet before it starts recombining into a single wire that feeds an entire neighborhood. A standard cable plant looks something like:
Where instead of a single signal going from your house to the headend (the cable equivalent of a CO), your signal is combined with those of your neighbors at the tap, and the entire block (or more) is pushed onto a single pair of fibers running from the node (which is basically a Light-to-RF converter and amp) out to the headend. At the headend, inside the CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System - it converts Ethernet into RF signals), several nodes are then combined into a single "laser group" on the CMTS, which converts the signal back into Ethernet and sends it on its way. Therefore, this leaves only three options for open access:
1) ISPs must sell service on a node-by-node basis only. If all your neighbours want AOL, then you're gettin' AOL whether you like it or not.
2) Replace _all_ other CMTS devices with Cisco uBRs (which retain all of the routing functionality of a standard 7200), and route different customers accordingly. Of course, this means that either all ISPs manage the uBR simeultaneously (lawsuit city) or agree to have one company manage it for all of them (yeah right).
3) Rebuild the cable system infrastructure in such a way that instead of being a broadcast system, it's a unicast system like the local telco. This is far more money than anyone (IMHO) is willing to spend, and if you're bringing fiber to the house, why bother with a cable modem?
I honestly do not see any of these three as a feasable possibility. Maybe in a few years' time, the cable system might be able to distiguish one person from another and allow just that signal to be pulled from a node, giving eneryone total choice as to what they want, but not with existing technology.
What I see in AOL's "Noble Crusade Against Evil Ma Bell(tm)" is an attempt to force AT&T to adopt option 1, thus using their already huge presence in the marketplace to dominate cities by neighborhood. If you were to go to each of your neighbors and ask them which ISP they use (or would want to use when/if they got an ISP), the majority would answer AOL, simply because they are (like it or not) the easiest for those new to computers to use. AOL is currently the biggest fish in the ISP pond. In trying to force open access, they're trying to make it a smaller pond.
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Both of these invole efforts to directly image extrasolar planets, which allows for the tantalizing possibility of finding life directly. With the wobble method, you can only tell that a body of a given mass is present at a given distance. With direct observation we could tell such things as the exact size of the planet, presence of any moons (watching the light curve for lunar transits), and, most exciting, atmospheric composition. If we were to find free oxygen in the atmosphere of a planet, it would finally be definite proof of life outside Earth. No other natural chemical process is capable of releasing oxygen in sufficient quantity to make up a substantial portion of a planet's atmosphere.
Having been in Munich, Germany soon after the explosion at Chernobyl, I admit that when I first saw this article it had me a bit worried. I still remember watching the news on AFN (Armed Forces Network) saying there was no danger, then turning to a local station to see a large red area right over Munich with a warning to stay out of the rain if at all possible. Despite this, I think that nuclear power is the safest, cleanest, most efficient method for generating electricity that we currently have. If the Ukraine needs to bring the rest of the plant online to kick-start their industrial capacity, more power to them! (no pun intended) Solar power is not anywhere near the efficiency level it needs to be at to provide electricity on a commercial scale. Wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric power all require very specific geography, and are still not as efficient as nuclear power. Fossil fuels are an idea whose time should have ended somewhere in the '50s. Fusion is still highly experimental and has not yet breached that elusive 1:>1 input/output power ratio. Fission-based reactors are proven technology. The reason, IMHO, that it is not more widely used is that incidents like Chernobyl and TMI tend to bring into people's minds the images of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We see pictures of people horribly scarred by radiation, and are irrationally afraid that a commercial reactor can do the same. Yes, the waste produced is rather more toxic than anything else, but there is far less of it, and it is produced with far less frequency. (Anybody have figures on how often a commercial reactor needs refueling?) For those people calling for money to be sent to the Ukraine instead of letting them bring this back online, I say let's send over a few competent nuclear technicians to help them bring it back up safely. And, for those who think that while I might advocate nuclear power, I wouldn't want it near my house, I say I'd like to have one _in_ my house. (Let's see anyone beat a nuclear reactor in a Geek Toy DSW) Seriously, I have no problem with the Ukraine bringing Chernobyl back online, as long as it is done safely.
--NOC Monkey (OOK!)
The date given for the filing is April 18, 1997. This is long after the beginning of GIMPS in January, 1996. Long before Intel even filed for a patent on this exact sort of computing. Perhaps George Woltman, spokesman of the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, has a case against Intel for theft of intellectual property.
Considering that the company I work for maintains a national 2.5Gbps POS ring, I don't see how 2.4Gbps is faster. Maybe 2.4>2.5 for sufficiently large values of 2.4, but I doubt that this is the case. While many areas do indeed have multi-gig circuits coming in, they are usually broken up into smaller circuits. In our case, we keep it at 2.5Gbps all the way around the ring. And, since we use packet over SONET, there's almost nothing lost to overhead. I really don't see how 2.4Gbps can claim to be the fastest.
From my point of view, the main problem with trying to force a cable company to "open up its lines" is that these lines are nothing like telco lines. The reason that you can choose your local telco is that there is a single pair of wires running from your house to the CO, and those wires can be moved from Company A's switch to Company B's switch with relatively few problems. In a cable system, however, the individualized wire only runs about 100 feet before it starts recombining into a single wire that feeds an entire neighborhood. A standard cable plant looks something like:
(Apologies for bad ASCII diagram)
[U]---[Tap]--\
[U]--/ |
[Node]---[+Other Nodes]--[HeadEnd]
[U]--\ |
[U]---[Tap]--/
Where instead of a single signal going from your house to the headend (the cable equivalent of a CO), your signal is combined with those of your neighbors at the tap, and the entire block (or more) is pushed onto a single pair of fibers running from the node (which is basically a Light-to-RF converter and amp) out to the headend. At the headend, inside the CMTS (Cable Modem Termination System - it converts Ethernet into RF signals), several nodes are then combined into a single "laser group" on the CMTS, which converts the signal back into Ethernet and sends it on its way. Therefore, this leaves only three options for open access:
1) ISPs must sell service on a node-by-node basis only. If all your neighbours want AOL, then you're gettin' AOL whether you like it or not.
2) Replace _all_ other CMTS devices with Cisco uBRs (which retain all of the routing functionality of a standard 7200), and route different customers accordingly. Of course, this means that either all ISPs manage the uBR simeultaneously (lawsuit city) or agree to have one company manage it for all of them (yeah right).
3) Rebuild the cable system infrastructure in such a way that instead of being a broadcast system, it's a unicast system like the local telco. This is far more money than anyone (IMHO) is willing to spend, and if you're bringing fiber to the house, why bother with a cable modem?
I honestly do not see any of these three as a feasable possibility. Maybe in a few years' time, the cable system might be able to distiguish one person from another and allow just that signal to be pulled from a node, giving eneryone total choice as to what they want, but not with existing technology.
What I see in AOL's "Noble Crusade Against Evil Ma Bell(tm)" is an attempt to force AT&T to adopt option 1, thus using their already huge presence in the marketplace to dominate cities by neighborhood. If you were to go to each of your neighbors and ask them which ISP they use (or would want to use when/if they got an ISP), the majority would answer AOL, simply because they are (like it or not) the easiest for those new to computers to use. AOL is currently the biggest fish in the ISP pond. In trying to force open access, they're trying to make it a smaller pond.