This research methodology [I did read it] reminds me very much of the statistical analysis which was used to "prove" that UN Sanctions caused 500,000 Iraqi children to die.
The essence of the research was - we looked at the population before the sanctions, estimated what the population should have been now based on normal growth rates, and any difference -must- be attributable to what we believe the answer is - that Iraqi children were killed by the hardship imposed by the sanctions.
What the actual reasons turn out to be: 1) The study only dealt with a small portion of the country in the SouthEast, and extrapolated those numbers to the entire country. 2) The study did not take into consideration that 1 million young men had perished in the Iraq/Iran war, and that the Islamic prohibitions on sexual matters left a country full of unwed women where getting pregnant out of marriage just isn't permitted - having a dramatic effect on reproductive rates. 3) Saddam systematically caused the population to be forced from the area that was studied by draining the swamplands where the shiite population had lived for generations 4) It ignored that Sadddam instituted a program of mass genocide in the areas which supported his ouster after the first gulf war, and the resulting exodus of people (many went to Iran to flee the persecution).
Using statistics to try to prove a preconceived notion is an abuse of the scientific principle.
A fairly big chunk of that $20 billion would be MSNBC, which continues to draw huge audiences with market shares of.1 and.2 on cable. Do they still have that synchorized animated character on the screen interacting with the hosts? And people wonder why MSNBC isn't taken seriously.
The article also mentions that some of this supposed $20 billion was minority investments in cable TV systems outside of the US. The author seems to confuse "Spend" with "Invest", which is completely understanable, since the Government Invests money all over the place.
This initial announcement is basically saying that AOL is dropping its broadband service in BellSouth's territory, but they also expect to drop it in much of the rest of the country.
The reason has to do with the recent FCC decisions which are ending the practice of requiring the ILECs (BellSouth, SBC, Verizon, etc..) to lease their facilities to 3rd parties below cost (if you believe the phone company). The phone companies are squeezing third parties out of the DSL business.
The real irony is that in the pre Time/Warner days, AOL led the charge for "equal access" on cable systems, to require your cable TV company to let AOL use your cable TV system to reach its customers. The moment AOL acquired! Time/Warner, they reversed their position and said "never mind" - because of course Time Warner owns Time Warner Cable and Road Runner.
What goes around comes around if you wait long enough.
Mechanical lever voting machines, used widely since the 1930s don't have a paper audit trail for each vote or a paper ballot. Why is this suddenly an issue?
Both lever machines and electronic ones have a huge advantage if your goal is to "count every vote" - they make it impossible to spoil the vote by voting improperly (ie voting for too many candidates)...
When is the last time you took the receipt from your trip to the grocery store and demanded that the store manager add it up by hand? The entire notion of ordering a recount on a voting computer is bizarre.
One of the operational problems with nuclear power plants is they operate best and most safely in a steady state. The problem is that energy use is not constant, so the variation in demand has to be dealt with by costly or limited non-nuclear sources.
An example of this is Duke Power - they built a large hydro facility which consumes excess energy by pumping water uphill during periods of slow demand, and generate hydro power by reversing the process during peak periods. http://www.dukepower.com/community/learn ingcenter/ generating/pumpedstorage/
However, if a viable hydrogen vehicle develops, using the excess energy during low-demand periods to generate hydrogen would seem to be a perfect fit.
Hey, France gets over 75% of its electricity from nuke-ular power - how can you argue with that?
The strategy isn't at all surprising - Bill Gates believes in the idea "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability [to pay for my mansion]"
The last line of the AP story mentions that the Oregonian newspaper was the source of the story:
Here is the original story before AP edited / rewrote it:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.s sf ?/base/front_page/109896512934940.xml
It contains significant details that the AP decided not to include:
[The call came in late July or early August. A man identifying himself as a federal Homeland Security agent said he needed to talk to Cox at her store.
Cox asked what it was all about.
"He said he was not at liberty to discuss that," she said.
They agreed to meet in early August, but the agent later canceled. Cox thought the matter had blown over when the agent called back Sept. 9 to say he was coming out there. ]
Keeping in mind that this is *her* opinion of the events... So this didn't just come out of the blue... This story is 7 weeks old... it didn't just happen yesterday...
[Kice also said Homeland Security officials routinely investigate such complaints and follow up if they determine they are valid. ]
Paragraph dropped. The clear message of that paragraph is that they did make a determination that the TRADEMARK infringement was valid prior to visiting the store.
[After gaining assurances from Toysmith officials, Cox put the Magic Cube back on the shelf soon after the agents left. ]
Hmmm...
The author of the original story [printed at the bottom of the above linked page] is: Ashbel "Tony" Green: 503-221-8202; tonygreen@news.oregonian.com if you have any questions...
Does this mean when I deposit a check in my account that I'll have immediate access to the funds? It has been cleared immediately against the account it was writtne on, the bank won't insist that it still needs 3 business days to clear the transfer will it?
If the stock analysts see that a company sold "x" printers, and that means over the next "y" years, we'll sell x*y*(# per year) cartridges, then the stock price may zoom up on anticipation of future revenue.
By the time the revenue stream reflects that a large percentage of of the printers never resulted in a single refill, the original stock holders have sold their stock and moved on to the next project.
The flaw is in thinking that the business model has something to do with selling printers, rather than with selling stock.
[This is a general observation, not specific to this company/situation]
Replay Radio does a pretty good job of recording radio streams to mp3 files. Its primary purpose is to capture Internet streams, but anything that can be plugged into the sound card input would work - except that the software on the computer doesn't have an ability to change the channel on the radio.
It seems to me that we're rapidly approaching the point where conventional "over the air" broadcasting has no purpose. For music, all the stations are doing is playing digital files that are available elsewhere, restricted to a specific playlist. For other types of "content", the amount of time it takes to download a 30 minute radio program on a cable connection is close to trivial and dropping. A library of recent content would be more appealing than "live", unless the shows have a true interactive component.
Just imagine how much better the public interest could be served with WiMax (or similar technology) on the 20Mhz of broadcast spectrum currently used by FM radio.
Could it be the reason that 3 groups of Iraqi troops converged on this unit at a critical military objective was that Geraldo Rivera drew a map on the ground on live TV on Fox News on April 1st showing where they were and their future path?
... if the US goverment (or any other evil organisation/entity of your choice) started doing this, allowing you to be "found in real time", you might have a reason to scream up about "civil liberties" and whatnot
This tracking system exists and is called Wireless E911 - and the cell phone is directly tied to your name, social security number and home address. The cell provider pinpoints your location by using triangulation from multiple towers (or GPS on newer handsets).
This process goes on constantly, even if you aren't making a call - since the cell phone carrier needs to know where you are if someone calls you. This process is an inherent part of the cell phone technology, as it is how your phone call is handed off between cells as your move.
One of the issues with rail based systems (and public transit in general) is preemption - where different types of traffic cross paths, which has priority?
At railroad grade crossings, the rail line has preemption enforced with flashing lights and gates. Tram lines are less so due to their slower operating speeds and less hazardous cargo, but in many places the tram system does control and override the signal lights at intersections. Some bus systems also have this ability.
If you have a rail line with grade crossings, do you really want the gates going up and down and stopping traffic for 5 mintues to let a single truck go by? Is that good public policy?
Also, branch lines typically are not double tracked and have very few passing sidings, so bidirectional traffic is unworkable.
That picture matches up with the geology of Manhattan. The tip of the island down by Wall Street and up in Midtown (the area below Central Park) are solid bedrock near the surface. The area in between, including SoHo and Greenwich Village, do not have bedrock near the surface, and thus can only support small buildings (at least at the time the area was built).
So cause and effect are backwards - the areas have tall buildings because the bedrock supports them.
Slashdot Mirror
This research methodology [I did read it] reminds me very much of the statistical analysis which was used to "prove" that UN Sanctions caused 500,000 Iraqi children to die.
The essence of the research was - we looked at the population before the sanctions, estimated what the population should have been now based on normal growth rates, and any difference -must- be attributable to what we believe the answer is - that Iraqi children were killed by the hardship imposed by the sanctions.
What the actual reasons turn out to be:
1) The study only dealt with a small portion of the country in the SouthEast, and extrapolated those numbers to the entire country.
2) The study did not take into consideration that 1 million young men had perished in the Iraq/Iran war, and that the Islamic prohibitions on sexual matters left a country full of unwed women where getting pregnant out of marriage just isn't permitted - having a dramatic effect on reproductive rates.
3) Saddam systematically caused the population to be forced from the area that was studied by draining the swamplands where the shiite population had lived for generations
4) It ignored that Sadddam instituted a program of mass genocide in the areas which supported his ouster after the first gulf war, and the resulting exodus of people (many went to Iran to flee the persecution).
Using statistics to try to prove a preconceived notion is an abuse of the scientific principle.
A fairly big chunk of that $20 billion would be MSNBC, which continues to draw huge audiences with market shares of .1 and .2 on cable. Do they still have that synchorized animated character on the screen interacting with the hosts? And people wonder why MSNBC isn't taken seriously.
The article also mentions that some of this supposed $20 billion was minority investments in cable TV systems outside of the US. The author seems to confuse "Spend" with "Invest", which is completely understanable, since the Government Invests money all over the place.
This initial announcement is basically saying that AOL is dropping its broadband service in BellSouth's territory, but they also expect to drop it in much of the rest of the country.
The reason has to do with the recent FCC decisions which are ending the practice of requiring the ILECs (BellSouth, SBC, Verizon, etc..) to lease their facilities to 3rd parties below cost (if you believe the phone company). The phone companies are squeezing third parties out of the DSL business.
The real irony is that in the pre Time/Warner days, AOL led the charge for "equal access" on cable systems, to require your cable TV company to let AOL use your cable TV system to reach its customers. The moment AOL acquired! Time/Warner, they reversed their position and said "never mind" - because of course Time Warner owns Time Warner Cable and Road Runner.
What goes around comes around if you wait long enough.
Mechanical lever voting machines, used widely since the 1930s don't have a paper audit trail for each vote or a paper ballot. Why is this suddenly an issue?
Both lever machines and electronic ones have a huge advantage if your goal is to "count every vote" - they make it impossible to spoil the vote by voting improperly (ie voting for too many candidates)...
When is the last time you took the receipt from your trip to the grocery store and demanded that the store manager add it up by hand? The entire notion of ordering a recount on a voting computer is bizarre.
One of the operational problems with nuclear power plants is they operate best and most safely in a steady state. The problem is that energy use is not constant, so the variation in demand has to be dealt with by costly or limited non-nuclear sources.
n ingcenter/ generating/pumpedstorage/
An example of this is Duke Power - they built a large hydro facility which consumes excess energy by pumping water uphill during periods of slow demand, and generate hydro power by reversing the process during peak periods.
http://www.dukepower.com/community/lear
However, if a viable hydrogen vehicle develops, using the excess energy during low-demand periods to generate hydrogen would seem to be a perfect fit.
Hey, France gets over 75% of its electricity from nuke-ular power - how can you argue with that?
The strategy isn't at all surprising - Bill Gates believes in the idea "To each according to his needs, from each according to his ability [to pay for my mansion]"
The last line of the AP story mentions that the Oregonian newspaper was the source of the story:
s sf ?/base/front_page/109896512934940.xml
Here is the original story before AP edited / rewrote it:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.
It contains significant details that the AP decided not to include:
[The call came in late July or early August. A man identifying himself as a federal Homeland Security agent said he needed to talk to Cox at her store.
Cox asked what it was all about.
"He said he was not at liberty to discuss that," she said.
They agreed to meet in early August, but the agent later canceled. Cox thought the matter had blown over when the agent called back Sept. 9 to say he was coming out there. ]
Keeping in mind that this is *her* opinion of the events... So this didn't just come out of the blue... This story is 7 weeks old... it didn't just happen yesterday...
[Kice also said Homeland Security officials routinely investigate such complaints and follow up if they determine they are valid. ]
Paragraph dropped. The clear message of that paragraph is that they did make a determination that the TRADEMARK infringement was valid prior to visiting the store.
[After gaining assurances from Toysmith officials, Cox put the Magic Cube back on the shelf soon after the agents left. ]
Hmmm...
The author of the original story [printed at the bottom of the above linked page] is:
Ashbel "Tony" Green: 503-221-8202; tonygreen@news.oregonian.com if you have any questions...
Does this mean when I deposit a check in my account that I'll have immediate access to the funds? It has been cleared immediately against the account it was writtne on, the bank won't insist that it still needs 3 business days to clear the transfer will it?
Not necessarily.
If the stock analysts see that a company sold "x" printers, and that means over the next "y" years, we'll sell x*y*(# per year) cartridges, then the stock price may zoom up on anticipation of future revenue.
By the time the revenue stream reflects that a large percentage of of the printers never resulted in a single refill, the original stock holders have sold their stock and moved on to the next project.
The flaw is in thinking that the business model has something to do with selling printers, rather than with selling stock.
[This is a general observation, not specific to this company/situation]
Replay Radio does a pretty good job of recording radio streams to mp3 files. Its primary purpose is to capture Internet streams, but anything that can be plugged into the sound card input would work - except that the software on the computer doesn't have an ability to change the channel on the radio.
It seems to me that we're rapidly approaching the point where conventional "over the air" broadcasting has no purpose. For music, all the stations are doing is playing digital files that are available elsewhere, restricted to a specific playlist. For other types of "content", the amount of time it takes to download a 30 minute radio program on a cable connection is close to trivial and dropping. A library of recent content would be more appealing than "live", unless the shows have a true interactive component.
Just imagine how much better the public interest could be served with WiMax (or similar technology) on the 20Mhz of broadcast spectrum currently used by FM radio.
Geraldo spills military secrets
(the bridge was taken by the US on April 2nd, and the counterattack mentioned in the article was at 3AM on April 3rd)
This tracking system exists and is called Wireless E911 - and the cell phone is directly tied to your name, social security number and home address. The cell provider pinpoints your location by using triangulation from multiple towers (or GPS on newer handsets).
This process goes on constantly, even if you aren't making a call - since the cell phone carrier needs to know where you are if someone calls you. This process is an inherent part of the cell phone technology, as it is how your phone call is handed off between cells as your move.
According to opensecrets.org, on 6/28/2004, the Gates Foundation gave $2,000 to the John Kerry presidential campaign.
($2000 is the federal limit)
While the can is the -size- of a 16 fluid ounce can, it only contains 10 fluid ounces of cooled liquid.
SpamAssasin rated today's Slashdot newsletter as a 5.2, because the description of this article talks about mortgages and AOL users clicking.
One of the issues with rail based systems (and public transit in general) is preemption - where different types of traffic cross paths, which has priority?
At railroad grade crossings, the rail line has preemption enforced with flashing lights and gates. Tram lines are less so due to their slower operating speeds and less hazardous cargo, but in many places the tram system does control and override the signal lights at intersections. Some bus systems also have this ability.
If you have a rail line with grade crossings, do you really want the gates going up and down and stopping traffic for 5 mintues to let a single truck go by? Is that good public policy?
Also, branch lines typically are not double tracked and have very few passing sidings, so bidirectional traffic is unworkable.
That picture matches up with the geology of Manhattan. The tip of the island down by Wall Street and up in Midtown (the area below Central Park) are solid bedrock near the surface. The area in between, including SoHo and Greenwich Village, do not have bedrock near the surface, and thus can only support small buildings (at least at the time the area was built).
So cause and effect are backwards - the areas have tall buildings because the bedrock supports them.
IANAG.