As I understand it, the band used is microwave, not actually radio. So as far as line noise/signal drop from inclement weather goes, you'd get interference if the transmitting signal (on either end) isn't high enough. Any water or water-bearing object in the way will dampen your signal.
I attempted to get this sort of service here in Indiana (near South Bend), and was unable to get a successful signal from the tower 3 miles away because there was a row of trees blocking LOS. They'd have to increase transmitting power in order to penetrate the trees, but the tower was residential so they probably had a cap on transmission power.
So, in order for the midwest thing to work (what with the weather and all), it seems they'd have to increase the microwave tower's broadcast power. Have to be careful though; don't want to cook the cow before it's ready to be steak...
How about the way a language shapes your thoughts? There's the argument that learning a (spoken) language alters the way you think about things. Throw that into the mix and it could affect the way one programs, especially if one is translating from say German to English in order to program. Your concepts change in the process of thinking about them, as well as the translation.
I read something interesting which stated that the language of an American Indian tribe (can't remember which) had a future and past tense of verbs, but no present tense (I may be misremembering, here. Suffice it to say they were missing a tense that Enlglish has.) In any event, imagine how a native speaker of said language would work in physics. Just the alterring of his/her conception of time would affect the way s/he approaches a given problem.
So, take that to programming. If the above is taken as accurate, one's logic could conceivably be vastly effected if one has to translate keywords, operators, and function calls from one's native language to English.
I don't know. It sounds good to me, but I'm sleepy.
Isn't this basically "learning"? I guess I was always under the impression that making new connections within the brain was how one learned stuff... It seams logical to me that if one is in an environment in which there is effectively constant learning, there would be a corresponding response in neural activity.
I remember reading an article (can't remember where exactly, probably Scientific American or some such) that described this study performed on squids in which the researchers were able to actually see new neural pathways being created based on the environment they put the squids in (e.g. an aquarium filled with chilly/hot water, excess salinity of the water, application of beatings, etc). The gist of the article was that this implied the proverbial "nurture" aspect of development.
This also brings to mind a study in which Alzheimer's (sp?) patients were put on this regimen of mental puzzles and brain teasers in order to test performance (I believe that was the original intent). They found that the patients actually started to get better after doing these puzzles and games for awhile. It turned out that the patients were developing new neural pathways from the mental stimulation.
So, while this latest study is neat and interesting, I guess I just don't see it as extremely earthshaking news, more of a confirmation of other studies.
I was underthe impression that if one used a professional piece of software, such as photoshop or fireworks, the licensing fee was included in the price you payed for said software...
I suppose that if you use some shareware image program, or an open source piece of software for image development/manipulation, you might run into problems if the authors of the program didn't deal with the licensing issue.
How is that verifiable, though? How can unisys effectively prove which program you used to create an image? That's like putting a patent on ascii; how can one effectively prove that I used emacs instead of vi for typing a text document (assuming that emacs had acquired the ascii license and vi hadn't)?
Anyway, back to my original point... isn't the licensing fee (sub-licensing I guess) included in the purchase price of professional image dev. software? I believe I read that somewhere when this all started a few months ago.
If that's the case, then the likely targets (web development houses, corporate web sites) are much more likely to have purchased and used the professional software (such as photoshop) for the creation of gifs than the unlikely targets (personal web pages, small businesses).
I don't think this is something we really need to worry about. -j.
It occurs to me that the developing threads here highlight some of the points mentioned in the article... people are posting replies, and then other people flame them, or at least speak rather harshly to them.
I think the problem is that there's a kind of 'baring of the soul' when one goes online, because of the sometimes mentioned 'imaginary buffer' of the Net. When one sees something which is contrary to one's personal beliefs, it's a sort of personal affront to those beliefs. In order for reasoned discourse to ensue, one needs to realize this, and be watchful of one's reactions. There's often a tendency to blow up and spew vitriol onto the keyboard in such situations... this typically isn't good. In my experience, such writing doesn't serve to persuade, dissuade, or even inform.
In order to produce reasoned dialog, I think one should keep in mind that, unless one's full name, social security number (or equivalent), and parentage is specifically mentioned, one shouldn't react so violently and should, instead, produce a counter example or logical refutation.
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I attempted to get this sort of service here in Indiana (near South Bend), and was unable to get a successful signal from the tower 3 miles away because there was a row of trees blocking LOS. They'd have to increase transmitting power in order to penetrate the trees, but the tower was residential so they probably had a cap on transmission power.
So, in order for the midwest thing to work (what with the weather and all), it seems they'd have to increase the microwave tower's broadcast power. Have to be careful though; don't want to cook the cow before it's ready to be steak...
How about a mod that lets you code in h4x0r? How about that for obfuscated code?
I read something interesting which stated that the language of an American Indian tribe (can't remember which) had a future and past tense of verbs, but no present tense (I may be misremembering, here. Suffice it to say they were missing a tense that Enlglish has.) In any event, imagine how a native speaker of said language would work in physics. Just the alterring of his/her conception of time would affect the way s/he approaches a given problem.
So, take that to programming. If the above is taken as accurate, one's logic could conceivably be vastly effected if one has to translate keywords, operators, and function calls from one's native language to English.
I don't know. It sounds good to me, but I'm sleepy.
I remember reading an article (can't remember where exactly, probably Scientific American or some such) that described this study performed on squids in which the researchers were able to actually see new neural pathways being created based on the environment they put the squids in (e.g. an aquarium filled with chilly/hot water, excess salinity of the water, application of beatings, etc). The gist of the article was that this implied the proverbial "nurture" aspect of development.
This also brings to mind a study in which Alzheimer's (sp?) patients were put on this regimen of mental puzzles and brain teasers in order to test performance (I believe that was the original intent). They found that the patients actually started to get better after doing these puzzles and games for awhile. It turned out that the patients were developing new neural pathways from the mental stimulation.
So, while this latest study is neat and interesting, I guess I just don't see it as extremely earthshaking news, more of a confirmation of other studies.
I suppose that if you use some shareware image program, or an open source piece of software for image development/manipulation, you might run into problems if the authors of the program didn't deal with the licensing issue.
How is that verifiable, though? How can unisys effectively prove which program you used to create an image? That's like putting a patent on ascii; how can one effectively prove that I used emacs instead of vi for typing a text document (assuming that emacs had acquired the ascii license and vi hadn't)?
Anyway, back to my original point... isn't the licensing fee (sub-licensing I guess) included in the purchase price of professional image dev. software? I believe I read that somewhere when this all started a few months ago.
If that's the case, then the likely targets (web development houses, corporate web sites) are much more likely to have purchased and used the professional software (such as photoshop) for the creation of gifs than the unlikely targets (personal web pages, small businesses).
I don't think this is something we really need to worry about.
-j.
It occurs to me that the developing threads here highlight some of the points mentioned in the article... people are posting replies, and then other people flame them, or at least speak rather harshly to them.
I think the problem is that there's a kind of 'baring of the soul' when one goes online, because of the sometimes mentioned 'imaginary buffer' of the Net. When one sees something which is contrary to one's personal beliefs, it's a sort of personal affront to those beliefs. In order for reasoned discourse to ensue, one needs to realize this, and be watchful of one's reactions. There's often a tendency to blow up and spew vitriol onto the keyboard in such situations... this typically isn't good. In my experience, such writing doesn't serve to persuade, dissuade, or even inform.
In order to produce reasoned dialog, I think one should keep in mind that, unless one's full name, social security number (or equivalent), and parentage is specifically mentioned, one shouldn't react so violently and should, instead, produce a counter example or logical refutation.
Just my thoughts, though.