Agreed. Maybe I'm just a troglodyte, but I don't see how cell phone based TV could ever take off. This idea is just dumb.
I've got an internet capable phone--now internet is actually useful. Need directions--just go to mapquest. Need to ping a server you are working on from outside your network, check email, secure shell into some server to do remote admin--internet on your cell phone can be very useful.
But TV is for entertainment. I would never use my PDA phone for casual browsing--I want a full pc for that. I likewise would never use my PDA phone to watch TV unless it was absolutley necessary--I cannot think of how it ever would be necessary. Besides, you can just record the show if you are goign to be away.
I'm surprised with all the geeks in the house, nobody has referred to Star Treck's Borg as human/machine hybrid.
More seriously, as we continue to advance in the fields of molecular engineering/nano technology, the line between machine and biology blurs. Now we have a method for onbtaining energy directly from the blood stream.
The article doesn't say too much about the fuel cell except it is the size of a small coin. I wonder what the fuel cell is made of--anyone know any background on this research?
All the tools you need are wrapped up into linux.
Traffic control, rate limiting, dynamic blackholes, user registration, etc
I do this for a few thousand students living in our properties and others we manage, Takes some know-how, though to do it right. Not a quick fix, but it is so flexible once you've put the time in. You can respond to almost anything thrown your way.
Depending on how it is run, it could stifle competetion. If the service were run at cost by the city, then yes that would be bad for a competetive marketplace.
If the city is only facilitating the wireless network for a private company to build--by providing rooftop and utility access at market rates, and by offering any company the same contract terms for that access--then yes this would encourage competition.
Unfortunately, most large cities like Chicago are run by lefties, a few of whom do not believe in market capitalism. The city should not be allowed to run its own internet, or it will push others out of the market. With no competition you may get service for cheap at the start, but in the long run there will be little incentive to invest in more capacity and better service.
Exactly right.
And the problem with friends and family is that they are, more often than not, a typical home user. I only do computer fixup type work for my immediate family(as in siblings or parents only--no exceptions). My family will at least believe me when I tell them why computers turn to mush (spyware/adware/viruse/etc).
Higher order skills--setting up business networks, support contracts for an entire office, etc.. are a completely different animal. Once you've done this enough, you know how much work it takes to maintain these things and can charge a fair rate of the time in a month you expect to spend times $50. At that rate, you can undercut most of the expensive consulting firms for support contracts--plus you get regular income. Insist you have complete control over variables that will caue you more work--or at least charge more for practices that mess with your time estimates if you are concerned about seeming too much like a control freak.
I am not an economist, however your assertion that dollar denominated oil sales gives us the freedom to weaken the dollar. Oil is sold in dollars because the dollar is the default safe haven currency, not the other way around.
In fact, some talking-head-cbs.newswatch.com-CNBC type business folk argues during the past year that the weakening dollar was raising oil costs disproportionately in the US. The dollar-oil connection is actually harmful in my opinion
That beamer comment felt a lot like my school--the public school I went to out in the burbs before my family moved out of an urban setting where the schools sucked and I attended a private school.
Anyway, the most obvious difference was how different the teachers were. Public school techers in general did not seem to have the same level of committment my private school teachers had. My public school teachers thought I had learning disabilites. My parents knew better...I was bored out of my mind in the public schools. As a teacher herself, my mother spoke with my public school teachers and told them to give me more difficult assignments. Suddenly I wasn't daydreaming in class all day--you are less likely to if you have to actually try to understand the material.
If you have a kid in your class that you are teaching that cannot concentrate, frequently does not pay attention in class, does crappy work on his homework, gets perfect scores on all in class exams that test skills, but fails any exam that test whether the student read an assigned short story...that kid is bored.
My private school teachers never made the mistake of assuming I was just slow. I wonder what would have happened if I didn't have involved parents. My public school teachers were shocked by the information my parents gave them. As I gave my valadictory speech at graduation, I did not thank those teachers.
Now, I did have great teachers after that year, but they were all near retirement and are gone now. Maybe lifelong teachers are just better than new graduates, or maybe the quality of teachers was different 40 years ago--perhaps a vestige of the short list of career options for talented, educated women half a century ago.
from someone who works in a college setting--all the kids coming to school will probably NOT have this installed when they arrive in 2-3 weeks. M$ doesn't seem like they will put in on windowsupdate for another week or two.
So, everyone gets to school, then installs SP2, and then things break....blech.
I know this has been ranted about on slashdot, but why are patently obvious procedures patentable?
I'd be curious if anyone can suggest a good rule for eliminating obvious patents. Perhaps a rule that states that a method which mimics electonically what is done by other means cannot itself justify issuing a patent.
In the referrring patent, Microsoft pretty much has patented the procedure for looking at things with dates on them and sorting them in order of the date. Now, I understand if Microsoft patents the method they used to extract date information encoded into a photograph, but this patent is way too broad.
An idea borrowed from quantum mechanics... Measuring the system changes the system.
What if everyone takes the same alternate route to avoid the "busy" route?
As the story points out:
"But the website has already become a victim of its own success, admits Schreckenberg. Some of the 300,000 people a day who are visiting the site are replanning their journeys on the basis of its forecasts, and this is beginning to make the forecasts themselves less accurate."
Slashdot Mirror
Agreed. Maybe I'm just a troglodyte, but I don't see how cell phone based TV could ever take off. This idea is just dumb.
I've got an internet capable phone--now internet is actually useful. Need directions--just go to mapquest. Need to ping a server you are working on from outside your network, check email, secure shell into some server to do remote admin--internet on your cell phone can be very useful.
But TV is for entertainment. I would never use my PDA phone for casual browsing--I want a full pc for that. I likewise would never use my PDA phone to watch TV unless it was absolutley necessary--I cannot think of how it ever would be necessary. Besides, you can just record the show if you are goign to be away.
I'm surprised with all the geeks in the house, nobody has referred to Star Treck's Borg as human/machine hybrid.
More seriously, as we continue to advance in the fields of molecular engineering/nano technology, the line between machine and biology blurs. Now we have a method for onbtaining energy directly from the blood stream.
The article doesn't say too much about the fuel cell except it is the size of a small coin. I wonder what the fuel cell is made of--anyone know any background on this research?
All the tools you need are wrapped up into linux. Traffic control, rate limiting, dynamic blackholes, user registration, etc I do this for a few thousand students living in our properties and others we manage, Takes some know-how, though to do it right. Not a quick fix, but it is so flexible once you've put the time in. You can respond to almost anything thrown your way.
Depending on how it is run, it could stifle competetion. If the service were run at cost by the city, then yes that would be bad for a competetive marketplace.
If the city is only facilitating the wireless network for a private company to build--by providing rooftop and utility access at market rates, and by offering any company the same contract terms for that access--then yes this would encourage competition.
Unfortunately, most large cities like Chicago are run by lefties, a few of whom do not believe in market capitalism. The city should not be allowed to run its own internet, or it will push others out of the market. With no competition you may get service for cheap at the start, but in the long run there will be little incentive to invest in more capacity and better service.
Exactly right. And the problem with friends and family is that they are, more often than not, a typical home user. I only do computer fixup type work for my immediate family(as in siblings or parents only--no exceptions). My family will at least believe me when I tell them why computers turn to mush (spyware/adware/viruse/etc). Higher order skills--setting up business networks, support contracts for an entire office, etc.. are a completely different animal. Once you've done this enough, you know how much work it takes to maintain these things and can charge a fair rate of the time in a month you expect to spend times $50. At that rate, you can undercut most of the expensive consulting firms for support contracts--plus you get regular income. Insist you have complete control over variables that will caue you more work--or at least charge more for practices that mess with your time estimates if you are concerned about seeming too much like a control freak.
Or what, you ask? Well, France just might have a hissy and not invite you to suck up to them. :)
Law? What law binds non-signing coutries to an internantional treaty?
I am not an economist, however your assertion that dollar denominated oil sales gives us the freedom to weaken the dollar. Oil is sold in dollars because the dollar is the default safe haven currency, not the other way around.
In fact, some talking-head-cbs.newswatch.com-CNBC type business folk argues during the past year that the weakening dollar was raising oil costs disproportionately in the US. The dollar-oil connection is actually harmful in my opinion
That beamer comment felt a lot like my school--the public school I went to out in the burbs before my family moved out of an urban setting where the schools sucked and I attended a private school.
Anyway, the most obvious difference was how different the teachers were. Public school techers in general did not seem to have the same level of committment my private school teachers had. My public school teachers thought I had learning disabilites. My parents knew better...I was bored out of my mind in the public schools. As a teacher herself, my mother spoke with my public school teachers and told them to give me more difficult assignments. Suddenly I wasn't daydreaming in class all day--you are less likely to if you have to actually try to understand the material.
If you have a kid in your class that you are teaching that cannot concentrate, frequently does not pay attention in class, does crappy work on his homework, gets perfect scores on all in class exams that test skills, but fails any exam that test whether the student read an assigned short story...that kid is bored.
My private school teachers never made the mistake of assuming I was just slow. I wonder what would have happened if I didn't have involved parents. My public school teachers were shocked by the information my parents gave them. As I gave my valadictory speech at graduation, I did not thank those teachers.
Now, I did have great teachers after that year, but they were all near retirement and are gone now. Maybe lifelong teachers are just better than new graduates, or maybe the quality of teachers was different 40 years ago--perhaps a vestige of the short list of career options for talented, educated women half a century ago.
from someone who works in a college setting--all the kids coming to school will probably NOT have this installed when they arrive in 2-3 weeks. M$ doesn't seem like they will put in on windowsupdate for another week or two.
So, everyone gets to school, then installs SP2, and then things break....blech.
I know this has been ranted about on slashdot, but why are patently obvious procedures patentable?
I'd be curious if anyone can suggest a good rule for eliminating obvious patents. Perhaps a rule that states that a method which mimics electonically what is done by other means cannot itself justify issuing a patent.
In the referrring patent, Microsoft pretty much has patented the procedure for looking at things with dates on them and sorting them in order of the date. Now, I understand if Microsoft patents the method they used to extract date information encoded into a photograph, but this patent is way too broad.
An idea borrowed from quantum mechanics...
Measuring the system changes the system.
What if everyone takes the same alternate route to avoid the "busy" route?
As the story points out:
"But the website has already become a victim of its own success, admits Schreckenberg. Some of the 300,000 people a day who are visiting the site are replanning their journeys on the basis of its forecasts, and this is beginning to make the forecasts themselves less accurate."
I'm sur3 th3r3 is n0 way a c0mput3r can filt3r w0rds f0r z3r0s and thr33s.
The US already collects China's SMS data. It's called Echelon--maybe the US could just sell access to it's database to the Chinese?
All your SMS are belong to U.S.