There have not been any significant cuts in funding at any level. The issue is that the funding has not risen as fast as college expenditures so that a much smaller percentage of the cost is born by students in the form of tuition. See this link for more details (http://www.highereducation.org/reports/losing_ground/ar2.shtml). It is very common to hear people decrying 'cuts' when there is no such thing going on. The issue is purely one of uncontrolled rising costs full stop.
You are perfectly correct that the extra money is not spent on faculty salary costs. In fact, overall costs for faculty have been slightly declining due to the widespread use of adjunct professors who make very little and have no benefits. So if prices are rising much faster then inflation and the money isn't going to the average professor where is it going?
My guess is campus upgrades (somewhat offset by donations), administration salaries, sports - all of which have been growing like gangbusters at nearly any university you observe. At big universities the sports programs may actually be money-makers, but smaller universities loose money on them. It is also worth noting the rise of 'superstar' professors that make salaries well into the six figures (200k to 400k) and are especially prevalent in law schools.
If you follow the wireless industry for a while you see this is a repeat pattern: "Hmm, no one is using the spectrum near what my device will use so I can save a few cents by leaving out the receive filter!"
Garmin has been caught with their pants down and has been desperately trying to spin this as being LightSquared's fault.
Mod this comment up. Even if HTC became the dominate Android manufacturer Google would still be cherry picking the profits through their control of the Android app store.
WebOS is a very nice platform with an reasonable selection of *good* apps (1,500 apps might not sound like much compared to 50,000 but if the 1,500 include most of the very popular options you can still have a great experience). The Palm hardware was terrible - always a year behind what the rest of the industry was selling. HTC makes solid cutting edge hardware. I would love to run WebOS on a phone as well built as my EVO 3D.
Evidence of gastrointestinal problems from the MMR vaccine from the link in the main post:
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13164&page=115
RTFA! Everyone acknowledges this point, the . Seriously, you have a massive negative emotional response to evidence. Are you ok?
Idiot.
Posted again because Slashdot didn't give me the opportunity to log in before posting like it used to do...
I find it ironic that those who are most critical of Dr. Wakefield seldom actually understand the claims he made. It is also puzzling to observe how many 'Wakefield has been debunked!' statements are trumpeted about studies that don't even evaluate his specific claims. To be clear, Wakefield postulated two separate but related theories regarding the MMR vaccine and autism:
1 - The MMR vaccine increases the incidence of severe gastrointestinal disorders in very young children.
2 - Severe gastrointestinal disorders in very young children (2.5yrs) increase the likelyhood that they will develop an autistic disorder.
Autism is a spectrum of symptoms, not a specific disease. We do not know what causes it, and it may well be influenced by a variety of different causes. Claiming to have discovered one possible cause does not automatically mean that every, or perhaps even most, cases were related to the identified cause. I read through the section of the NAP book that addresses the issue of MMR and autism and they completely fail to discuss the Wakefield's actual theories. In fact, they even mention to two studies (not by Wakefield) that show a link between MMR and gastrointestinal disorders (theory 1) but make no attempt to discuss or evaluate the second theory. Whatever Wakefield's failings the fact remains that his first theory has independent corroborating evidence and his second theory has never been evaluated independently. The tar-and-feathering he received will insure that the second theory will not be seriously evaluated for a very long time.
It is entirely possible that Wakefield's theory is correct for some subset, perhaps as small as 1%-5%, of the existing autistic population. Anyone who has read about autism will have encountered the stories of children who had both gastrointestinal problems and autism and improved when eating very strict diets (no dairy, gluten, bananas, etc). These cases represent a very small subset of the total population and their risk factor may well have been much higher from the MMR vaccine then the average population. The overall risk of MMR may be too small to detect in the general population but still be fairly high for the specific subgroup that has a family history of gastrointestinal issues.
What do I take from this? Well my wife and her family have a history of gastrointestinal problems. We decided that in light of the evidence that MMR increases the onset of gastrointestinal disorders in very young children that the risk was not worth taking. Instead, we had our daughter vaccinated for each of the three diseases independently when she was five (the Measles vaccine by itself has not been associated with increased gastrointestinal distorders). This was not a 'religious' response, it was a carefully-reasoned and appropriate measure based on the available evidence.
What is truly bordering on religious (and not in a good way) is the passionate and shrill denouncement of this very reasonable and evidence based theory due to the fear that it will be misunderstood by the general population. The truth is still the truth even if you put your fingers in your ears and shout 'la la la I can't hear you!' at the top of your lungs when someone speaks it.
I am a PE and have done hundreds of RF emissions studies on wireless facilities, including rooftop installations like the one you describe. My initial thought is that twenty feet would be an unusually small distance between the antennas and your window. It may very well be much larger then that (50' or more is more likely - and would have much lower emission levels) but seems closer due to the perspective of the surrounding panoramic view. If it were truly only 20', and the building hosted antenna arrays from many wireless carriers (and FM transmitters), then there is a very slight possibility that the levels in your apartment could be near the public exposure limit. This situation is quite unlikely however. Most wireless carriers have an independent RF emissions study performed on rooftop installations that include measurements of the pre-existing antennas, so if you reached the right person and were persuasive enough you might be able to get them to share that with you (very unlikely).
Another poster recommended a cheap meter. I'm not convinced of their accuracy, but you could give it a try if it worries you. Someone else mentioned low-E glass and correctly stated that it blocks a significant amount of RF energy. If you have low-e glass then even 20' away would mean your apartment is below the public exposure limit.
The FCC limit for the 2.4GHz band is on EIRP (essentially Tx output power * antenna gain), not on Tx output power alone. Adding a high-gain antenna or boosting the Tx output power can both push you over the legal limit of 100mW EIRP.
My wife has this exact same problem. She was determined to solve it and first tried 'free-running sleep' where she stayed awake until she was tired then slept until she felt refreshed. This resulted in her sometimes being awake all night and gradually lapping herself. I think it worked out to a 28 hour day for her.
That method allowed her to feel refreshed, awake, and productive, but it doesn't work well in our culture. After some research she ordered glasses from www.lowbluelights.com. We also ordered black-out curtains for every window in our apartment and sealed them every night so that when they are shut it is so dark you cannot see your hand in front of your face. The glasses (which filter out blue light and allow your body to ramp up melatonin production if you put them on 2-3 hours before bed) actually helped, when she could wear them perfectly, but the slightest slip-up and the effect would be lost.
Next we tried using candles only for 3 hours before bed. This worked fantastically well. In fact, I would recommend trying it for a week (be sure to use black out curtains and get rid or completely cover *every* LED, or light source in your house (it will take a lot, you will be surprised). Both of us (and I never thought I had a problem), would become irresistibly drowsy after 2-3 hours of the candle light and would find ourselves waking about 10min before dawn after a two weeks of this method. It was an amazing insight into how different the modern world forces us to be from how we clearly are meant to operate. In addition, we were finally on the exact same sleep schedule, which if you have every had a different sleep schedule then your spouse you will know it can be a source of frustration.
The candles were not without serious drawbacks. After a few months they turned the ceilings of our apartment a light gray color from soot, it was hard to not be able to read at night very well, and we were concerned about the fire hazard and the cost. Finally, we tried amber compact florescent light for every room as well as an amber screen cover for the computer monitor. This works well, not as good as the candle light, but much better then before we started using it. It used to be that both of us loved having every lamp turned on with the brightest bulb we could get until right before bed. Now neither of us can stand bright lights at night, it is like our bodies start to crave darkness when it comes time for it. This is the method we have used for the past 1-1/2 years, and it has brought a lot of normalcy to my wife's sleeping.
Our next plan is to try and get some red lights to mix with the amber lights in the hope that it will allow us to get the full effect of candle light again. It is awesome to wake up fully refreshed right before dawn, and to fall asleep as soon as you head hits the pillow at night.
The article is just plain wrong when it states that the 2.5GHz band is superior for data, it is not. Throughput is primarily dependent on bandwidth, so 20MHz at in the 700MHz spectrum will effectively carry the same amount of data as 20MHz in the 2500MHz spectrum. The big difference is that Google can provide coverage in rural/suburban areas that have relatively low demand for throughput with far fewer sites. In urban areas Google can pack the sites just as closely together and will still be better off then they would with the 2.5GHz spectrum because they won't have to install in-building repeaters to ensure good coverage inside many of the buildings that would otherwise require such a system.
Correct, however if you are close enough to an antenna that the relationship is 1/r then the antenna length (or aperture) usually becomes non-negligible. On a wifi router with a 5" antenna it isn't a big deal, but on a cell tower with 6' to 8' antennas the antenna size means that the peak power density is lower then you would otherwise expect as the power is distributed over the antenna length.
Not necessarily. If the device on the other end doesn't perform as well as you planned when you designed the network you end up with unhappy customers who blame the network, not their phone. Verizon has always had the most strict standards when it came to approving devices. Yes, some of the reason is because they tried to lock them down, but mostly because they only allowed devices that were guaranteed to make the network look good. Not every phone performs the same - anyone who has ever put them on a test set can tell you that.
No, most licenses are divided into regions (RTA's). You bid a price on each region and then cobble together a network out of the regions you won and the spectrum you can trade to other holders that have licenses in the areas you didn't win.
No it wasn't, in fact there was a bit of protest and insistence that registration would destroy the benefits of anonymity. It is difficult to imagine now, but that was the general feeling people had towards the internet back in the mid-to-late 90's. I myself didn't register for years, partially because I sympathized with that feeling at the time, and also because I didn't need to. Every time I posted (which I only did because I knew something relevant to the discussion) my post would get modded up to +5. As Slashdot grew the noise increased and it became nearly impossible to get any moderator attention to AC postings.
Actually, I'd have to agree with the grandparent. I've had probably a dozen encounters with the police, with about the same percentage of negative to positive/neutral events. Not that I've ever been yelled at, but arrogance and body-language hostility still count as a negative encounter in my book.
Different professions attract different types of people. Technical fields (and Slashdot) are well known for having a large percentage of people who fit a certain stereotype to at least some degree. There are exceptions, but the stereotype exists for a reason.
The fundamental problem with police work is that the type of people attracted to a position that gives them the authority to control, threaten, and order around most of the population are exactly the people who should least be in that position!. Yes there are exceptions (probably at about the same rate that there are women that read Slashdot) but it is still a disturbingly high percentage of unpleasant encounters. Looking back at my negative experiences I can say that they were negative because of the attitude of the police officer I interacted with, not the situation itself. I say this as an average looking non-minority guy who doesn't drive aggressively, dresses professionally, is polite to others (especially officers), and is about as un-harassable as a person can be. I don't have a solution, but it helps to at least understand the root of the problem.
It's must be embarrassing when you write a post to discredit someone, and it ends up revealing that you didn't understand what was being said.
Lets go back to quantum physics / physical chemistry / modern physics (depending on the curriculum you studied in college). Electromagnetic energy has a dual wave-particle nature. The particle nature revealed by the fact that EM has a specific quanta (photon for EM in the light frequency range) of energy that is directly related to its frequency. The higher the frequency the greater the energy contained in the quanta or in the photon. This means that high frequency EM sources like X-rays, gamma rays, and beta rays (in order of increasing frequency) contain much more powerful quanta then low frequency EM sources (radio waves).
So why is the energy level in the quanta important? Well, if you recall your chemistry, electrons can be moved to higher orbits, or even dislodged from an atom by adding an exact amounts of energy to them (only the exact amount will cause a change, energy amounts greater or lower then the exact amount needed will have no effect on the electrons of an atom). The very lowest level of energy required to disturb an electron from the outermost shell of any atom just happens to correspond to the energy level of a quanta of an EM wave at the frequency of ultraviolet light. This means that all EM energy below this minimum frequency threshold are unable to disturb electrons in an atom, but above this frequency they can begin to alter the atom structure of matter, and the higher the frequency the greater they can alter the structure. Radiation capable of changing atomic structures is known as ionizing radiation, radiation incapable of causing changes is known as non-ionizing radiation.
So this explains why ultraviolet light is carcinogenic, it is just over the threshold of ionizing radiation, while red, orange, yellow, green, and blue light (Roy G. Biv) are perfectly safe (well, not carcinogenic anyway).
So, back to the whole point, RF radiation is nothing like nuclear radiation, unless you are ignorant and easily swayed by scaremongering tactics that use the word 'radiation' as a synonym for 'evil'.
Most handsets are limited to 250mW though 600mW is possible and more common for GSM. Obviously 250mW or 600mW an inch from your head results in power density values thousands of times stronger then the exposure from cell phone towers or wifi.
Output power doesn't tell the whole story, proximity is much more important. Electromagnetic power density dissipates at the inverse square of the distance from the emitter.
All you have to do is consider the receive power. It is typical to receive a wifi signal at -65dBm, while a cell signal indoors is seldom stronger then -80dBm. Even if you consider multiple channels and multiple carriers on each cell tower, you would seldom get a composite power level greater then -70dBm indoors. -65dBm is approximately 3 times stronger then -70dBm. Of course these are typical levels, but when you consider how many wifi networks you usually pick up in your own home (esp. apartment), you will almost always receive a far greater exposure to electromagnetic radiation from wifi then from cell phone towers.
Full disclosure: I perform power density theoretical studies and measurement levels for the wireless industry, and also design in-building wireless repeater systems so I have a fair bit of experience here.
I read an article several years back about how Circuit City fired all their highest-grossing commissioned salespeople to replace them with hourly workers. It must have been so successful they decided to try again.
Either that or they need the stock boost that comes from indiscriminately firing workers - Wall Street loves that.
So the fact that they are selling so fast Nintendo can't keep them in stock is used as proof that excitement is diminishing for the Wii? This reminds me of the alleged Yogi Berra saying about a certain resturant - "It's so crowded nobody goes there any more."
You my friend have discovered the gaping hole in our current system of discovering drugs. Willow bark relieved pain long before anyone discovered it contained acetylsalicylic acid. Clinical trials don't make a treatment effective, they only show if it is effective or not. It is surprising how many people (especially on slashdot) are unable to comprehend that distinction.
In all fairness, it isn't just slashdot. The medical field has a strong bias against non pharmaceutical company originated treatments - including simple things like niacin for cholesterol, and of course anything that is even remotely 'herbal'.
I just got a mac mini a week or so ago. My first mac, I've run windows & linux for years.
My opinion so far - it just works. Setup was drop-dead easy, even for me with no prior mac knowledge. I already love it. I've always hated having to spend large amounts of time keeping my home computer working properly, and if my setup experience is any indication, I won't have to anymore.
I upgraded to 2GB for ~180 at newegg, it wasn't very hard and it looks like the new macbooks use the same memeory. I'd recommend it over the $500 upgrade that apple offers. I also added a firewire external drive, it is very fast, and a great option since I'm not carrying it around a lot.
I also ditched safari and installed firefox, maybe if I purchased enough plug-ins I could have made safari almost as good, but it seemed like a waste, firefox just worked better (I gave safari a few days, I really did). I stuck with thunderbird since I'm fairly happy with it & don't want to undergo the very inconvienient mailbox-by-mailbox import procedure.
...This is totally different; those towers are pumping out huge amounts of radiation...
How do you know how much radiation is being put out by these towers? I've worked in the industry for quite a while, and can tell you that very few towers, even ones with lots of antennas on them are actually putting out significant amounts of power (where significant = within an couple of orders of magnitude less then you experience when using a cell phone, at distances where the general public is exposed, including floors directly below the transmitters)
Contrary to popular belief, neither the size of the antenna nor the number of antenanas tell you anything about the power output. Big antennas are particularly useful for picking up weak signals, and multiple antenna arrays provide spatial diversity which also improves the reception of weak signals. Think about the Deep Space Network dishes, they are huge, not because the signals are powerful, but the opposite, because they are so weak.
Finally, big antennas are more efficent at directing the energy in a specific direction. Unless they are pointed down at the roof it is very unlikely that there is much energy actually making it into the building.
The really ironic thing is that the poster believes that he has just happened to pick up some great programming skills that few people in the other industries have. The truth is that if it didn't take much for you to learn it it won't take much for someone with a formal background in scientific field to learn it. There is limited benefit to having a guy who can only code but doesn't have the background to understand why to code or what is needed. Your self-taught skills already exist amoung plenty of people who also have formal training in those fields and were also capable of teaching themselves.
Any specialized programs that perform calculations pertinent to a specific industry probably require a good knowledge of the subject matter in order to create accurate algorithms. General purpose programs, like a generic database, are probably handled by the IT department.
Slashdot Mirror
There have not been any significant cuts in funding at any level. The issue is that the funding has not risen as fast as college expenditures so that a much smaller percentage of the cost is born by students in the form of tuition. See this link for more details (http://www.highereducation.org/reports/losing_ground/ar2.shtml). It is very common to hear people decrying 'cuts' when there is no such thing going on. The issue is purely one of uncontrolled rising costs full stop.
You are perfectly correct that the extra money is not spent on faculty salary costs. In fact, overall costs for faculty have been slightly declining due to the widespread use of adjunct professors who make very little and have no benefits. So if prices are rising much faster then inflation and the money isn't going to the average professor where is it going?
My guess is campus upgrades (somewhat offset by donations), administration salaries, sports - all of which have been growing like gangbusters at nearly any university you observe. At big universities the sports programs may actually be money-makers, but smaller universities loose money on them. It is also worth noting the rise of 'superstar' professors that make salaries well into the six figures (200k to 400k) and are especially prevalent in law schools.
If you follow the wireless industry for a while you see this is a repeat pattern: "Hmm, no one is using the spectrum near what my device will use so I can save a few cents by leaving out the receive filter!"
Garmin has been caught with their pants down and has been desperately trying to spin this as being LightSquared's fault.
Mod this comment up. Even if HTC became the dominate Android manufacturer Google would still be cherry picking the profits through their control of the Android app store.
WebOS is a very nice platform with an reasonable selection of *good* apps (1,500 apps might not sound like much compared to 50,000 but if the 1,500 include most of the very popular options you can still have a great experience). The Palm hardware was terrible - always a year behind what the rest of the industry was selling. HTC makes solid cutting edge hardware. I would love to run WebOS on a phone as well built as my EVO 3D.
Evidence of gastrointestinal problems from the MMR vaccine from the link in the main post: http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13164&page=115 RTFA! Everyone acknowledges this point, the . Seriously, you have a massive negative emotional response to evidence. Are you ok? Idiot.
I find it ironic that those who are most critical of Dr. Wakefield seldom actually understand the claims he made. It is also puzzling to observe how many 'Wakefield has been debunked!' statements are trumpeted about studies that don't even evaluate his specific claims. To be clear, Wakefield postulated two separate but related theories regarding the MMR vaccine and autism:
1 - The MMR vaccine increases the incidence of severe gastrointestinal disorders in very young children.
2 - Severe gastrointestinal disorders in very young children (2.5yrs) increase the likelyhood that they will develop an autistic disorder.
Autism is a spectrum of symptoms, not a specific disease. We do not know what causes it, and it may well be influenced by a variety of different causes. Claiming to have discovered one possible cause does not automatically mean that every, or perhaps even most, cases were related to the identified cause. I read through the section of the NAP book that addresses the issue of MMR and autism and they completely fail to discuss the Wakefield's actual theories. In fact, they even mention to two studies (not by Wakefield) that show a link between MMR and gastrointestinal disorders (theory 1) but make no attempt to discuss or evaluate the second theory. Whatever Wakefield's failings the fact remains that his first theory has independent corroborating evidence and his second theory has never been evaluated independently. The tar-and-feathering he received will insure that the second theory will not be seriously evaluated for a very long time.
It is entirely possible that Wakefield's theory is correct for some subset, perhaps as small as 1%-5%, of the existing autistic population. Anyone who has read about autism will have encountered the stories of children who had both gastrointestinal problems and autism and improved when eating very strict diets (no dairy, gluten, bananas, etc). These cases represent a very small subset of the total population and their risk factor may well have been much higher from the MMR vaccine then the average population. The overall risk of MMR may be too small to detect in the general population but still be fairly high for the specific subgroup that has a family history of gastrointestinal issues.
What do I take from this? Well my wife and her family have a history of gastrointestinal problems. We decided that in light of the evidence that MMR increases the onset of gastrointestinal disorders in very young children that the risk was not worth taking. Instead, we had our daughter vaccinated for each of the three diseases independently when she was five (the Measles vaccine by itself has not been associated with increased gastrointestinal distorders). This was not a 'religious' response, it was a carefully-reasoned and appropriate measure based on the available evidence.
What is truly bordering on religious (and not in a good way) is the passionate and shrill denouncement of this very reasonable and evidence based theory due to the fear that it will be misunderstood by the general population. The truth is still the truth even if you put your fingers in your ears and shout 'la la la I can't hear you!' at the top of your lungs when someone speaks it.
Idiot.
I am a PE and have done hundreds of RF emissions studies on wireless facilities, including rooftop installations like the one you describe. My initial thought is that twenty feet would be an unusually small distance between the antennas and your window. It may very well be much larger then that (50' or more is more likely - and would have much lower emission levels) but seems closer due to the perspective of the surrounding panoramic view. If it were truly only 20', and the building hosted antenna arrays from many wireless carriers (and FM transmitters), then there is a very slight possibility that the levels in your apartment could be near the public exposure limit. This situation is quite unlikely however. Most wireless carriers have an independent RF emissions study performed on rooftop installations that include measurements of the pre-existing antennas, so if you reached the right person and were persuasive enough you might be able to get them to share that with you (very unlikely). Another poster recommended a cheap meter. I'm not convinced of their accuracy, but you could give it a try if it worries you. Someone else mentioned low-E glass and correctly stated that it blocks a significant amount of RF energy. If you have low-e glass then even 20' away would mean your apartment is below the public exposure limit.
The FCC limit for the 2.4GHz band is on EIRP (essentially Tx output power * antenna gain), not on Tx output power alone. Adding a high-gain antenna or boosting the Tx output power can both push you over the legal limit of 100mW EIRP.
My wife has this exact same problem. She was determined to solve it and first tried 'free-running sleep' where she stayed awake until she was tired then slept until she felt refreshed. This resulted in her sometimes being awake all night and gradually lapping herself. I think it worked out to a 28 hour day for her.
That method allowed her to feel refreshed, awake, and productive, but it doesn't work well in our culture. After some research she ordered glasses from www.lowbluelights.com. We also ordered black-out curtains for every window in our apartment and sealed them every night so that when they are shut it is so dark you cannot see your hand in front of your face. The glasses (which filter out blue light and allow your body to ramp up melatonin production if you put them on 2-3 hours before bed) actually helped, when she could wear them perfectly, but the slightest slip-up and the effect would be lost.
Next we tried using candles only for 3 hours before bed. This worked fantastically well. In fact, I would recommend trying it for a week (be sure to use black out curtains and get rid or completely cover *every* LED, or light source in your house (it will take a lot, you will be surprised). Both of us (and I never thought I had a problem), would become irresistibly drowsy after 2-3 hours of the candle light and would find ourselves waking about 10min before dawn after a two weeks of this method. It was an amazing insight into how different the modern world forces us to be from how we clearly are meant to operate. In addition, we were finally on the exact same sleep schedule, which if you have every had a different sleep schedule then your spouse you will know it can be a source of frustration.
The candles were not without serious drawbacks. After a few months they turned the ceilings of our apartment a light gray color from soot, it was hard to not be able to read at night very well, and we were concerned about the fire hazard and the cost. Finally, we tried amber compact florescent light for every room as well as an amber screen cover for the computer monitor. This works well, not as good as the candle light, but much better then before we started using it. It used to be that both of us loved having every lamp turned on with the brightest bulb we could get until right before bed. Now neither of us can stand bright lights at night, it is like our bodies start to crave darkness when it comes time for it. This is the method we have used for the past 1-1/2 years, and it has brought a lot of normalcy to my wife's sleeping.
Our next plan is to try and get some red lights to mix with the amber lights in the hope that it will allow us to get the full effect of candle light again. It is awesome to wake up fully refreshed right before dawn, and to fall asleep as soon as you head hits the pillow at night.
The article is just plain wrong when it states that the 2.5GHz band is superior for data, it is not. Throughput is primarily dependent on bandwidth, so 20MHz at in the 700MHz spectrum will effectively carry the same amount of data as 20MHz in the 2500MHz spectrum. The big difference is that Google can provide coverage in rural/suburban areas that have relatively low demand for throughput with far fewer sites. In urban areas Google can pack the sites just as closely together and will still be better off then they would with the 2.5GHz spectrum because they won't have to install in-building repeaters to ensure good coverage inside many of the buildings that would otherwise require such a system.
Correct, however if you are close enough to an antenna that the relationship is 1/r then the antenna length (or aperture) usually becomes non-negligible. On a wifi router with a 5" antenna it isn't a big deal, but on a cell tower with 6' to 8' antennas the antenna size means that the peak power density is lower then you would otherwise expect as the power is distributed over the antenna length.
Not necessarily. If the device on the other end doesn't perform as well as you planned when you designed the network you end up with unhappy customers who blame the network, not their phone. Verizon has always had the most strict standards when it came to approving devices. Yes, some of the reason is because they tried to lock them down, but mostly because they only allowed devices that were guaranteed to make the network look good. Not every phone performs the same - anyone who has ever put them on a test set can tell you that.
No, most licenses are divided into regions (RTA's). You bid a price on each region and then cobble together a network out of the regions you won and the spectrum you can trade to other holders that have licenses in the areas you didn't win.
Try the Teaching Company. They offer high-school level math. I have thoroughly enjoyed the many classes I have purchased from them.
Of course it is hard to tell anything from a single article since it could very well be the reporter projecting his fervent wishes onto the data.
No it wasn't, in fact there was a bit of protest and insistence that registration would destroy the benefits of anonymity. It is difficult to imagine now, but that was the general feeling people had towards the internet back in the mid-to-late 90's. I myself didn't register for years, partially because I sympathized with that feeling at the time, and also because I didn't need to. Every time I posted (which I only did because I knew something relevant to the discussion) my post would get modded up to +5. As Slashdot grew the noise increased and it became nearly impossible to get any moderator attention to AC postings.
Different professions attract different types of people. Technical fields (and Slashdot) are well known for having a large percentage of people who fit a certain stereotype to at least some degree. There are exceptions, but the stereotype exists for a reason.
The fundamental problem with police work is that the type of people attracted to a position that gives them the authority to control, threaten, and order around most of the population are exactly the people who should least be in that position!. Yes there are exceptions (probably at about the same rate that there are women that read Slashdot) but it is still a disturbingly high percentage of unpleasant encounters. Looking back at my negative experiences I can say that they were negative because of the attitude of the police officer I interacted with, not the situation itself. I say this as an average looking non-minority guy who doesn't drive aggressively, dresses professionally, is polite to others (especially officers), and is about as un-harassable as a person can be. I don't have a solution, but it helps to at least understand the root of the problem.
Lets go back to quantum physics / physical chemistry / modern physics (depending on the curriculum you studied in college). Electromagnetic energy has a dual wave-particle nature. The particle nature revealed by the fact that EM has a specific quanta (photon for EM in the light frequency range) of energy that is directly related to its frequency. The higher the frequency the greater the energy contained in the quanta or in the photon. This means that high frequency EM sources like X-rays, gamma rays, and beta rays (in order of increasing frequency) contain much more powerful quanta then low frequency EM sources (radio waves).
So why is the energy level in the quanta important? Well, if you recall your chemistry, electrons can be moved to higher orbits, or even dislodged from an atom by adding an exact amounts of energy to them (only the exact amount will cause a change, energy amounts greater or lower then the exact amount needed will have no effect on the electrons of an atom). The very lowest level of energy required to disturb an electron from the outermost shell of any atom just happens to correspond to the energy level of a quanta of an EM wave at the frequency of ultraviolet light. This means that all EM energy below this minimum frequency threshold are unable to disturb electrons in an atom, but above this frequency they can begin to alter the atom structure of matter, and the higher the frequency the greater they can alter the structure. Radiation capable of changing atomic structures is known as ionizing radiation, radiation incapable of causing changes is known as non-ionizing radiation. So this explains why ultraviolet light is carcinogenic, it is just over the threshold of ionizing radiation, while red, orange, yellow, green, and blue light (Roy G. Biv) are perfectly safe (well, not carcinogenic anyway).
So, back to the whole point, RF radiation is nothing like nuclear radiation, unless you are ignorant and easily swayed by scaremongering tactics that use the word 'radiation' as a synonym for 'evil'.
Most handsets are limited to 250mW though 600mW is possible and more common for GSM. Obviously 250mW or 600mW an inch from your head results in power density values thousands of times stronger then the exposure from cell phone towers or wifi.
All you have to do is consider the receive power. It is typical to receive a wifi signal at -65dBm, while a cell signal indoors is seldom stronger then -80dBm. Even if you consider multiple channels and multiple carriers on each cell tower, you would seldom get a composite power level greater then -70dBm indoors. -65dBm is approximately 3 times stronger then -70dBm. Of course these are typical levels, but when you consider how many wifi networks you usually pick up in your own home (esp. apartment), you will almost always receive a far greater exposure to electromagnetic radiation from wifi then from cell phone towers.
Full disclosure: I perform power density theoretical studies and measurement levels for the wireless industry, and also design in-building wireless repeater systems so I have a fair bit of experience here.
Either that or they need the stock boost that comes from indiscriminately firing workers - Wall Street loves that.
So the fact that they are selling so fast Nintendo can't keep them in stock is used as proof that excitement is diminishing for the Wii? This reminds me of the alleged Yogi Berra saying about a certain resturant - "It's so crowded nobody goes there any more."
In all fairness, it isn't just slashdot. The medical field has a strong bias against non pharmaceutical company originated treatments - including simple things like niacin for cholesterol, and of course anything that is even remotely 'herbal'.
My opinion so far - it just works. Setup was drop-dead easy, even for me with no prior mac knowledge. I already love it. I've always hated having to spend large amounts of time keeping my home computer working properly, and if my setup experience is any indication, I won't have to anymore.
I upgraded to 2GB for ~180 at newegg, it wasn't very hard and it looks like the new macbooks use the same memeory. I'd recommend it over the $500 upgrade that apple offers. I also added a firewire external drive, it is very fast, and a great option since I'm not carrying it around a lot.
I also ditched safari and installed firefox, maybe if I purchased enough plug-ins I could have made safari almost as good, but it seemed like a waste, firefox just worked better (I gave safari a few days, I really did). I stuck with thunderbird since I'm fairly happy with it & don't want to undergo the very inconvienient mailbox-by-mailbox import procedure.
How do you know how much radiation is being put out by these towers? I've worked in the industry for quite a while, and can tell you that very few towers, even ones with lots of antennas on them are actually putting out significant amounts of power (where significant = within an couple of orders of magnitude less then you experience when using a cell phone, at distances where the general public is exposed, including floors directly below the transmitters)
Contrary to popular belief, neither the size of the antenna nor the number of antenanas tell you anything about the power output. Big antennas are particularly useful for picking up weak signals, and multiple antenna arrays provide spatial diversity which also improves the reception of weak signals. Think about the Deep Space Network dishes, they are huge, not because the signals are powerful, but the opposite, because they are so weak.
Finally, big antennas are more efficent at directing the energy in a specific direction. Unless they are pointed down at the roof it is very unlikely that there is much energy actually making it into the building.
Any specialized programs that perform calculations pertinent to a specific industry probably require a good knowledge of the subject matter in order to create accurate algorithms. General purpose programs, like a generic database, are probably handled by the IT department.