Ah, the literary elite and their definition of good literature.
Their 'definition' has always puzzled me. It is almost as if they ignore what a lot of science fiction fans like in favor of social commentary with a science fiction veneer.
To them, Vonnegut and Bradbury are 'science fiction' writers.
To many science fiction fans, Vonnegut and Bradbury are good writers that are on the fringe of science fiction.
I'm curious as to what Heinlein novels you have read if you consider them overblown and boring. I've read and reread most of what he has written and find them enjoyable, if dated in some cases. (There are some I enjoy more than others. The others might be the ones you consider overblown and boring.)
I will admit that Sturgeon's Law applies as much to Heinlein as it does to everything else. While he was a major influence on SF, and one of the reasons good SF writers can get big money, he was also highly opinionated and wrote about a number of controversial subjects. Furthermore, in order to do things like keep food on the table, he wrote to get published, which involves certain compromises.
As far as 2001 is concerned, I would say that its biggest benefit was that it was an 'art' film that had realistic space ships and space technology. Those who were looking at the hardware could imagine themselves on the moon or in space, a year before the first moon landing. At the same time, critics could ponder the story and wonder if humankind had somehow been influenced/created by 'others'.
I would be curious as to why you, yourself, consider 2001 to be overblown and boring. It is certainly not an action flick. But it was a big thing when it came out. My junior high english class made a special trip to see it and we had a long discussion about it the next day.
Let the market mavens of Hollywood take the Sci Fi channel and run it into the ground, tracking the demographics.
Create an SF channel that actually focuses on SF. It would probably have a lower market share, but the fans would be people who are loyal and likely to be technophiles.
Perhaps the SF channel could even cover things that are SF becoming reality. Imagine a 'future tech' show that has interviews with people like Burt Rutan (SpaceShipOne) and various Internet entrepreneurs, all set against classic SF.
When dealing with English teachers and others that talk about 'great literature', I have often asked them what constitutes 'great literature'.
The best answer I've heard was from an English major, who was quoting his teacher.
"Great literature is something that makes you think."
Well, science fiction makes me think a lot more than what most English teachers consider to be 'great literature'. With a tiny seed of an idea taken from good SF, even stuff from half a century ago, I can come up with dozens of ideas and concepts that cover hundreds of topics. As the 'literature of possibilities', SF does a much better job of stimulating creative thinking than Shakespeare, Steinbeck, James and others.
Now when it comes to making you think about the 'human' condition, SF does require some thinking outside the box, especially when dealing with alien cultures that are not like human cultures. At the same time, being able to create an alien culture that is different than a human culture requires knowledge of human culture that may go beyond what 'great literature' encompasses.
It would be interesting to come up with a comprehensive set of arguments showing how good SF can do everything that 'great literature' can do, and much more beyond that.
It would also be interesting to show that Sturgeon's Law applies to non-SF and SF, especially those SF examples that English teachers use to 'prove' that SF doesn't qualify as 'great literature'.
I'm glad to see at least one SF fan here.
For those of you who don't understand the difference between SF and 'Sci Fi', consider the following, in addition to the X-File fanbois comments above.
At a local con, the printed con program warned 'Sci Fi' fans that older fans, the hard core, used the phrase SF.
'Sci Fi', to an SF fan, was used to refer to the cheesy stuff that Hollywood and the television would put out under the label science fiction. But over time, 'Sci Fi' has become the accepted term amoung a lot of groups. (Except for the really hard core SF fans.)
Personally I wouldn't mind seeing some of the David Brin stuff in movie form. Or, perhaps if you want something different, James White's Hospital Station series, which would include lots of aliens in a hospital environment where medical research is done.
A few hours ago, while talking to a friend, she made the observation that SF tends to be read by more intelligent people. She mentioned a family member of hers as an example.
I've found, through experience, that SF readers tend to be people with a lot of different interests and are probably more intelligent than the average. While they may not be blazingly successful in life, you can talk to them on a variety of cerebral topics and have some really fun conversations.
That said, I figure that Hollywood, in order to maximize profits, dumbs down their SF so that a larger population is likely to watch it. This, unfortunately, makes it cheesy to those of us who enjoy the good stuff.
About the only way we will be able to get the 'good stuff' is to make it ourselves using computer arrays, graphics programs and actor AIs. But that is in the future and will require some talented non-Hollywood directors and a low cost distribution system, in addition to the hardware/software.
I'm not sure that Starship Troopers would qualify as Heinlein's 'ideal' society. It was more of a controversial political statement than anything.
It may have also been his way of getting out of a contract for writing so called 'juveniles' since it was the last he wrote for that genre. (I seem to recall reading somewhere that he intentionally wrote a book that was good fiction and technically fit the genre, but was too controversial for them to publish.)
Now when you get down to it, the current administration's off and on proposal for mandatory 'civil service', which can include military service, is a trend toward what Heinlein brought up in Starship Troopers.
As a long time Heinlein fan, I watched the movie and listened to the commentary, wondering if the director did much more than skim the book. I also had my doubts that he had read very much Heinlein, especially the stuff after 1959, when Starship Troopers was published.
As with many Hollywood productions of SF classics, I would have to give Starship Troopers a D minus with regards to how well the movie matched the book. While it did cover the suffrage through military service concept, with an iron hand, it missed a lot of the interesting things like the fighting suits. (Budget restrictions, according to the director.)
Because hundreds of thousands of people worked hard on making sure that software could handle Y2K, the problem was minimal. As a result, there are some idiots out there who claim that Y2K was a hoax. (They obviously were involved in the programming side of IT during the years before Y2K. They could also have been dealing with software that actually Y2K compatible from the beginning.)
The 'fire fighting' aspect of Y2K did create a subindustry of people selling 'emergency' supplies to be used in the event of catastrophy. By providing 'worst case' scenarios of what could happen as the result of Y2K, they were able to sell a lot of supplies to people who were gullible enough to buy them at premium prices.
The fact that Y2K wasn't the disaster the doomsayers predicted caused some people to claim that it was a hoax.
Still, these supplies were often the same sort of stuff that state and federal disaster preparedness organizations suggest for events like hurricanes, earthquakes and massive power outages. Unfortunately, not many people plan for such events, even if they live in hazard zones.
Sometimes the network engineers are requested to "improve the network" by the administration because additional capabilities are desired.
To do it right, additional hardware and software would be needed, as well as additional training. Furthermore, the network engineers should have enough time to install, test and plan a careful conversion, which takes lots of resources.
IF administration is wise, they will provide what is needed, even if it makes the accountants cringe.
IF administration thinks they are network engineers, or the accountants have override capabilities, or administration and the accountants have read 'technical' articles about ideal network upgrades, the network engineers are given 'reasonable' deadlines that have no ties to reality.
These 'reasonable' deadlines force shortcuts to be taken, thus increasing the changes of fires starting.
(I will admit that there are instances where network engineers tweak a perfectly good system and cause problems. At the same time, it is hard to tell a network engineer based system tweak gone wrong from an administration requested system tweak gone wrong.)
Sounds like your friends have played D&D for a long time but haven't developed the skills to teach it.
I know that D&D can be learned at an earlier age. My 16 year old has been playing it since he was nine or ten. Of course it helped that he had people to help him out with the details.
One of his characters, a fighter named Artemis, got to be well known for his slice and dice abilities. He had a set of bastard swords, magical and otherwise, and heavy duty armor that made him a terror against a variety of foes.
I would definitely agree that transparency in elections and government, with the elimination of paid political advertising, would be worth the cost of a universal fiber optic network. It is much too easy to 'buy' elections, except when the people in office are doing too many things that the voters dislike. If people could be shown how they could promote freedom and democracy through a slight increase in utility costs, then they would buy into it.
I have to disagree with your comment about freedom and democracy not being as valuable as asphalt. They are symbiotic. If you don't have low cost ways of delivering physical goods and services, you can't provide the basics people need for living. One result is anarchy. Another is the creation of fiefdoms that provide services. Neither supports freedom and democracy.
Physical mobility, on the other hand, does support freedom and democracy. If you don't like what the local politicians are doing, you can go down to their meetings and protest in person, which has a much bigger impact than something like email. In some instances, you can run for office, contacting groups, in person, to get their support, which also has a bigger impact than email, websites or paper flyers. And if it looks like things won't change barring a revolution, you can always leave.
None of the above would be easy without asphalt or the equivalent.
While there are other options other than asphalt, they also cost more than a good fiber optic network. Until we can get Star Trek style transporters, or their functional equivalent, we will need that asphalt to help keep freedom and democracy functional. At the same time, the universal fiber optic network is also needed.
If high quality telecommuting were made possible through a universal fiber optic network, then the amount of asphalt roads could be reduced, even for such things as manufacuring. You would still need roads for some people, but the amount could be reduced.
If high quality shopping were possible through this network, via virtual malls and virtual reality, then the amount of asphalt roads could also be reduced, as well as the amount of paved parking. That would save lots of money that is hidden in the cost of goods sold. ('Free' parking is paid by higher costs to consumers.)
If high quality medical care were possible through this network, perhaps through the science fiction concept of AutoDocs, then road reduction would be possible. Heck, preventative medical care could reduce the need for hospitals and their attendant transportation needs, for more cost reductions.
There will, of course, be a point where you can't reduce the need for asphalt, at least with current technologies. But if you promote universal fiber optic networks as a way of keeping your taxes lower while promoting freedom and democracy, you may get a good sized following.
Your biggest problem will be convincing those people who want that asphalt because they live and die by their vehicles and they hate having to deal with traffic.
If you are an urban transportation engineer, or a city slicker who thinks that milk comes from a store, the words 'dirt track' would definitely apply to a grader and gravel road.
I suspect that we are dealing with language differences. Your 'dirt track' and my grader and gravel 'road' are probably identical in structure but different in name.
If you happen to be the person who is building that grader and gravel road for access to different parts of your property, and perhaps your neighbor's property, you are not likely to use much of the additional equipment and supplies you mentioned because it costs too much. At the same time, because it isn't intended for heavy use, the grader and gravel road is more than adequate for your needs.
There will, of course, be trouble spots along this type of road that you will have to maintain more often. A load of gravel in your pickup truck, picked up at a neighbor's quarry and dropped off every few days when you have the time, would be your response to many of these trouble spots. And since you are eating and sleeping anyway, as well as doing the driving for other reasons, the costs are your time and a small amount of cash to pay for the extra gas used.
The results, even with wear and tear, may not be a 'road' by some definitions, but it would likely be a road to the person putting it in and would appear on maps as a 'dirt road' or 'unimproved road', at least in the United States.
To put all of this in context, several people, including George Bernard Shaw, Alistair Cooke and Winston Churchill, have said that 'Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language'. I suspect that also applies to Australia and America.
You kind of missed the point that roads also cost far more than fibre optics and that's by an order of magnitude, like duhh. Your broad lie that a domestic street, costs the same as a fibre optic cable in a conduit is just pathetic ie. a quick Internet search can demonstrate that a dirt road in Afghanistan cost 1 million dollars per kilometre.
There is a definite difference in interpretation here. In my price comparision suggestion, I was thinking of the type of dirt road that involves using a grader to shove the dirt to the side in wheat country. I was NOT talking about a domestic street, which hints that you also missed a point.
If these types of roads cost a million dollars per kilometer, a lot of the local farmers wouldn't have roads. Of course the roads aren't meant for a lot of traffic.
Getting fibre optics to places like these would likely involve hanging it from telephone/power poles that already exist. If the poles belong to the property owners, then things are fine. If they belong to the utility company, some sort of cost may be incurred. And this ignores any of the switching necessary to light the fibre.
Does anyone have a price for getting fibre optics to a place that is ten miles from the main road? (That assumes that there is fibre along the main road, which may not be true. It also assumes that the fibre is hung from the existing telephone/power lines.)
We could compare that to cost of renting a grader for a week, and having five tons of gravel to fill in the low spots. (I'll assume that the farmer doesn't have a grader, to up the cost of the road.)
I'm quite aware that the unit cost of fibre optics is cheaper than the other infrastructure. (At least the cable/conduit side is.)
Of course, it is a lot easier to get by without fibre optics than it is to do without water, power, and physical access. The original statement was wondering why developed countries could afford roads but not fibre optics. I tried answering that.
I was bringing up that comparison because the other infrastructure is essential and preexisting while fibre optic infrastructure is not quite at that level. You need to convince people that they NEED fibre optics before you are going to get them to buy into providing it at a universal level. They are already convinced that they need roads, power and other things like that.
When it comes to how infrastructure is installed, I suspect that we may be dealing with different countries in our comparisions. That and city versus countryside.
Not long ago, in the city where I live, they put in a major fibre optic network in hope of stimulating internet based business downtown. They were tearing up the streets in a high rise area to put in the backbone, with extra capacity for additional fibre.
If they were just crossing the streets to get to the spaces under the sidewalks, then things would have been a lot neater and there would have been less disruption. They could have drilled across and kept the streets intact. But they weren't, I suspect due to property issues.
In less dense areas, telephone/power poles tend to be the distribution means of choice, except in those areas where the utilities are underground. The owners of those poles get to charge others for usage in some instances. That adds to the cost of fibre optics, just as it adds to the costs of cable TV.
Underground utilities can be under sidewalks, but they just as easily are in utility corridors or easements. Depending upon the developer, utilities may be put under the streets and driveways, where the odds of a homeowner digging down and cutting the connections is lower. There are, unfortunately, lots of newer subdivisions that lack sidewalks.
Your use of the word 'footpaths' and metric measurements seems to imply that you are in Great Britain or another European country. That might explain some of the differences.
I would say that one of the biggest reasons developed countries can afford roads as opposed to fibre optics is the fact that the roads have been there a lot longer and are essential for life. While the Internet IS a computer highway and is causing a lot of changes, positive and negative, it is not quite as important as that expensive strip of black dirt.
Another reason is the transportation industry. There is a massive amount of political backing for roads and other non-Internet transportation like air travel. While they use the Internet, their liveblood is the money spent on the more expensive connections like roads. That probably won't change for a while either.
Do note that fibre optic broadband does have certain limits.
One, while you can order things through broadband connections, it is a little difficult to deliver physical items like food, drink, clothing, network hardware and other physical essentials over broadband. You still need roads for that, given existing tech limits.
Two, people sometimes leave their homes to do things like go to school, work, go shopping, attend non-network meetings/events, get medical help, eat out and other activities that require physical presence. This also requires roads.
Now it would be nice if broadband could enable people to reduce the amount of physical travel they do, thus reducing the need for a lot of that 'black strip of dirt' in front of my property. In time, I think it could IF people realized how much money they are spending on it. (I would love to turn the semi-arterial in front of my property to a tree lined residential street. I think it could be done if people drove less because they could do more with broadband.)
While I would love to have fibre optic cables to every location in the country, I don't want the companies putting it in to make a mess out of everything while they are putting it in.
For example, if they are going to be tearing up expensive roads to put in underground fiber optic cables, they need to pay the full cost of repairing the roads to the original quality of the roads. Furthermore, they need to coordinate with local governments and utilities so that the roads aren't being torn up every six months when yet another company puts in fibre. (Yes it creates more expense. But those roads are going to be needed for a few more decades.)
Now if the companies are using the telephone poles in my back yard, then they need to work with the organizations that control those poles as well as local government. Too many lines strung to the same poles can create an eyesore. Abandoned lines can also create an eyesore. A bit of cooperation among all the groups trying to use those poles would go a long way to getting broadband to everybody AND keep expenses down.
There is still the problem of distance, especially in rural areas. While fibre optic cables may be cheap relative to paved roads, it is still expensive if you are trying to connect a group of houses that are a couple of miles away from the main trunk. This happens a lot more in the United States than it does in a much smaller and more urbanized area like Japan or South Korea.
Do note that Japan and South Korea should be considered developed countries. But their size and population densities make it easier to do the connections. (If you combine the areas and population of Japan and South Korea, using some Wikipedia numbers, you have an area of about 477,000 square kilometers and a population of 176 million. Compare this to Texas with an area of 695,000 square kilometers and a population of almost 24 million. Even with 'cheap' fiber optics, it is still expensive to make those connections.)
It would be interesting to do comparisions of fibre optic cable installation costs versus types of roads on a per linear foot basis. This would need to include such things as repeater stations for the fibre and signage for the roads. I suspect that dirt roads in the country may be cheaper, especially in places that don't get much rain.
If you are flying in the western states, you have to watch out for a phenomena called cumulo graniti. West of the Rockies, once you are above 7000 feet (An overestimate) you are unlikely to crash into a mountain.
In the western states, there are lots of mountains taller than 7000 feet. Having the sunlight available at the end of a work day gives you the extra edge you need to avoid encountering cumulo graniti if you want to get in some flight time.
I have a number of relatives who are farmers that also work on non-farm jobs. Depending upon the hours of their non-farm job, they don't necessarily work in synch with the sunlight.
For some of them, DST is a boon because it makes the light 'available' when they are not at their non-farm job.
For others, especially when dealing with dairy cows, it can be a pain for the farmer and workers, because you may not want to change the milking schedule to accomodate changes in time.
Some businesses may be running on a 24/7 basis, like WalMart and card driven gas stations, but that is more of an exception. I've found that many businesses operate on a 1000 to 2100 basis, while others seem to function with a 0800 to 1800 schedule. And when it comes to manufacturing, while some firms run 24/7, others run two shifts and some run only one.
If you happen to work for a 24/7 organization that allows flex time, then changing your schedule negates the need for DST. The rest of us, unfortunately, have to be available during so called peak business hours. That is where DST is useful, especially if you have something close to an 0800 to 1700 job and want to do something outdoors after work.
I do find it interesting that you assume that people are running the heat or the air conditioning almost 24/7. With a properly designed house, and auxiliary control mechanisms (sweaters for winter and blinds for summer) you can greatly cut back on heating and air conditioning. A lot of people use that technique, especially when they want to have money available for things other than utility bills.
I also find the comment about crops and DST to be a little bit strange. The biggest impact that DST would have would be on the farmers that have day jobs that are not in farming. If they had the flex time you speak about, then DST would not be useful. But I suspect that most of them don't, so having DST might give them more daylight at the end of the non-farm work day.
The countries in question are small and high tech, with population densities that make it a lot cheaper to provide services. I also suspect that lot sizes are smaller, so the costs of physically connecting to broadband are cheaper.
In the US, with certain exceptions like NYC and San Francisco, we have lower densities so it requires longer runs for physical wiring. This can be a major problem if you are looking at various forms of DSL, which have distance restrictions. Even if the cost differences in the wiring are relatively trivial, you would need a greater number of distribution nodes to serve the same number of drop points. In this, all of the broadband providers are in the same boat.
Then you have our laws regarding utilities and property rights. While people may want the services that come in on the wires, broadband included, they often object to stringing more wires. Furthermore, the organizations that put up the poles, or the underground utility corridors, aren't usually going to let others use their facilities for free. That's another cost that the broadband providers have to handle, reducing their ability to make a profit and their incentive to enter a market.
As a further complication to the above, local governments often restrict competition through agreements with various service providers. The idea, in an ideal situation, is to get the best price/service possible for the community while avoiding mayfly organizations that could spend millions and leave the community without the services. Whether this works depends upon the community.
While it would be nice to have increased broadband competition, I would hate to have it be the type that ends up with dozens of extra lines on telephone poles or streets that are torn up every few weeks because yet another group wants to provide services.
That does bring up another point. Do either Japan or S. Korea have NATIONAL telecommunication companies that provide the backbone for broadband? If they do, that might be another reason for their advantages.
From what I've have read, he placed a trojan on a site that had a high probablity of being frequented by pedophiles. It was downloaded to about 3K machines, not 30K. (Where you got the 30K number, and him setting up cameras, makes me wonder about some of your facts.)
He then checked those machines for activities that hinted the user of the machine was doing more than simply viewing. That gave him enough evidence of the higher level activities for him to contact the police.
The fact that he was able to take control of the computers does bring up the spectre of planting evidence. Unless you are a security expert who tracks and logs everything going in and out via a network connection, you could be victimized by an unethical cracker. If the evidence planter worked at it long enough, they could build a substantial history of 'evidence' and keep it concealed until it is leaked to the authorities. And if unethical groups are behind the hacking, that 'evidence' could be backed up in the real world with bank accounts and credit cards.
If you are being really paranoid, you almost need to have two types of personal computers. One is used for the things you want to save and does NOT have a connection to an external network. The other is a sacrificial machine that you clear frequently so that planted evidence gets wiped.
Of course, that still wouldn't prevent simple breaking and entering, with some quick sneakernet downloads of planted evidence. But if you had a hidden computer with cameras monitoring the secured computers, you might be able to prove that there was the possibility of planted evidence.
Now, at what point does caution cross over into paranoia?
The loophole is kind of like somebody seeing a major crime being committed while trespassing. While they are doing something illegal, it is a misdemeanor. If the crime they see is a felony, then their eyewitness testimony is valid.
Since when is the idea of using DC power to directly run computers and peripherals a crackpot idea?
I've been thinking about this one for several years, especially since I realized that one of the big heat sources of a desktop computer, the power supply, is usually placed INSIDE the box. If it were placed outside, with proper shielding, a lot of your cooling problems would be reduced.
From there it isn't that much of a stretch to the idea of placing all the power supplies outside the hardware they drive. Cooling needs are reduced and if the power supply fails, you just swap it out. (We're actually getting places with this concept. And in some instances, some of the parts, usually power cords, are interchangeable.)
The next conceptual step looks at the fact that you still have the power supplies generating heat while providing the DC power needed for the hardware. By eliminating the need to do this, you save power and reduce heat generation. Of course, you will need to play games with voltage. And, since the utilities don't usually provide DC power, you need a source.
Batteries, recharged by local sources so you don't have a lot of line loss, would work. One of the biggest problems would be getting the extra lines in place, working with the utilities.
Personally I would love to do it in my house, for the half dozen or so computers we currently have, but I lack the expertise and cash to pull it off. When playing with electricity and wiring, I'll leave it to the experts.
The biggest drawback I see to such a thing in the house is the fact that the computers, when on, provide a certain amount of auxiliary heating in winter.
If you're in a big city, you might have a 24 hour society, though I suspect that the majority of the population is daylight driven.
Elsewhere, daylight rules, especially if you want to do things other than stay indoors all the time. Having that extra daylight at the end of the work day is nice. Having daylight at 0400 is a pain, even with blackout curtains.
And while flextime can allow people to 'create' more free time during daylight hours, it is not universal and it is often restricted when is is available. Businesses frequently have 'core' hours they need covered and even with flex time you may not gain a lot of extra daylight.
Does a fire engine have to be able to make a U-turn on a residential street? Do note that there are different lengths of fire engines. Some residential streets seem to be designed so that a hook and ladder fire engine could make a turn. Of course, the odds of that vehicle being needed in a suburban neighborhood with single story houses are slim. This is where rules can be senseless when they are applied to ALL areas.
There is also some problems with the wide roads when it comes to public safety. A narrow street with lots of cars parked on it tends to slow people down. Slower vehicles reduce the damage that occurs when accidents happen. I've seen statistics that say a pedestrian has a good chance of surviving an car accident when the car is moving at 20 MPH. When the speeds are 35MPH or higher, the pedestrian is as good as dead.
Then there is a cost that many people ignore. Streets eventually need repaving. Wider streets will cost more to repave.
Slashdot Mirror
Ah, the literary elite and their definition of good literature.
Their 'definition' has always puzzled me. It is almost as if they ignore what a lot of science fiction fans like in favor of social commentary with a science fiction veneer.
To them, Vonnegut and Bradbury are 'science fiction' writers.
To many science fiction fans, Vonnegut and Bradbury are good writers that are on the fringe of science fiction.
It is an interesting world.
I'm curious as to what Heinlein novels you have read if you consider them overblown and boring. I've read and reread most of what he has written and find them enjoyable, if dated in some cases. (There are some I enjoy more than others. The others might be the ones you consider overblown and boring.) I will admit that Sturgeon's Law applies as much to Heinlein as it does to everything else. While he was a major influence on SF, and one of the reasons good SF writers can get big money, he was also highly opinionated and wrote about a number of controversial subjects. Furthermore, in order to do things like keep food on the table, he wrote to get published, which involves certain compromises. As far as 2001 is concerned, I would say that its biggest benefit was that it was an 'art' film that had realistic space ships and space technology. Those who were looking at the hardware could imagine themselves on the moon or in space, a year before the first moon landing. At the same time, critics could ponder the story and wonder if humankind had somehow been influenced/created by 'others'. I would be curious as to why you, yourself, consider 2001 to be overblown and boring. It is certainly not an action flick. But it was a big thing when it came out. My junior high english class made a special trip to see it and we had a long discussion about it the next day.
Let the market mavens of Hollywood take the Sci Fi channel and run it into the ground, tracking the demographics. Create an SF channel that actually focuses on SF. It would probably have a lower market share, but the fans would be people who are loyal and likely to be technophiles. Perhaps the SF channel could even cover things that are SF becoming reality. Imagine a 'future tech' show that has interviews with people like Burt Rutan (SpaceShipOne) and various Internet entrepreneurs, all set against classic SF.
When dealing with English teachers and others that talk about 'great literature', I have often asked them what constitutes 'great literature'. The best answer I've heard was from an English major, who was quoting his teacher. "Great literature is something that makes you think." Well, science fiction makes me think a lot more than what most English teachers consider to be 'great literature'. With a tiny seed of an idea taken from good SF, even stuff from half a century ago, I can come up with dozens of ideas and concepts that cover hundreds of topics. As the 'literature of possibilities', SF does a much better job of stimulating creative thinking than Shakespeare, Steinbeck, James and others. Now when it comes to making you think about the 'human' condition, SF does require some thinking outside the box, especially when dealing with alien cultures that are not like human cultures. At the same time, being able to create an alien culture that is different than a human culture requires knowledge of human culture that may go beyond what 'great literature' encompasses. It would be interesting to come up with a comprehensive set of arguments showing how good SF can do everything that 'great literature' can do, and much more beyond that. It would also be interesting to show that Sturgeon's Law applies to non-SF and SF, especially those SF examples that English teachers use to 'prove' that SF doesn't qualify as 'great literature'.
I'm glad to see at least one SF fan here. For those of you who don't understand the difference between SF and 'Sci Fi', consider the following, in addition to the X-File fanbois comments above. At a local con, the printed con program warned 'Sci Fi' fans that older fans, the hard core, used the phrase SF. 'Sci Fi', to an SF fan, was used to refer to the cheesy stuff that Hollywood and the television would put out under the label science fiction. But over time, 'Sci Fi' has become the accepted term amoung a lot of groups. (Except for the really hard core SF fans.) Personally I wouldn't mind seeing some of the David Brin stuff in movie form. Or, perhaps if you want something different, James White's Hospital Station series, which would include lots of aliens in a hospital environment where medical research is done.
A few hours ago, while talking to a friend, she made the observation that SF tends to be read by more intelligent people. She mentioned a family member of hers as an example. I've found, through experience, that SF readers tend to be people with a lot of different interests and are probably more intelligent than the average. While they may not be blazingly successful in life, you can talk to them on a variety of cerebral topics and have some really fun conversations. That said, I figure that Hollywood, in order to maximize profits, dumbs down their SF so that a larger population is likely to watch it. This, unfortunately, makes it cheesy to those of us who enjoy the good stuff. About the only way we will be able to get the 'good stuff' is to make it ourselves using computer arrays, graphics programs and actor AIs. But that is in the future and will require some talented non-Hollywood directors and a low cost distribution system, in addition to the hardware/software.
I'm not sure that Starship Troopers would qualify as Heinlein's 'ideal' society. It was more of a controversial political statement than anything.
It may have also been his way of getting out of a contract for writing so called 'juveniles' since it was the last he wrote for that genre. (I seem to recall reading somewhere that he intentionally wrote a book that was good fiction and technically fit the genre, but was too controversial for them to publish.)
Now when you get down to it, the current administration's off and on proposal for mandatory 'civil service', which can include military service, is a trend toward what Heinlein brought up in Starship Troopers.
As a long time Heinlein fan, I watched the movie and listened to the commentary, wondering if the director did much more than skim the book. I also had my doubts that he had read very much Heinlein, especially the stuff after 1959, when Starship Troopers was published.
As with many Hollywood productions of SF classics, I would have to give Starship Troopers a D minus with regards to how well the movie matched the book. While it did cover the suffrage through military service concept, with an iron hand, it missed a lot of the interesting things like the fighting suits. (Budget restrictions, according to the director.)
You could say that Y2K was like this.
Because hundreds of thousands of people worked hard on making sure that software could handle Y2K, the problem was minimal. As a result, there are some idiots out there who claim that Y2K was a hoax. (They obviously were involved in the programming side of IT during the years before Y2K. They could also have been dealing with software that actually Y2K compatible from the beginning.)
The 'fire fighting' aspect of Y2K did create a subindustry of people selling 'emergency' supplies to be used in the event of catastrophy. By providing 'worst case' scenarios of what could happen as the result of Y2K, they were able to sell a lot of supplies to people who were gullible enough to buy them at premium prices.
The fact that Y2K wasn't the disaster the doomsayers predicted caused some people to claim that it was a hoax.
Still, these supplies were often the same sort of stuff that state and federal disaster preparedness organizations suggest for events like hurricanes, earthquakes and massive power outages. Unfortunately, not many people plan for such events, even if they live in hazard zones.
Sometimes the network engineers are requested to "improve the network" by the administration because additional capabilities are desired.
To do it right, additional hardware and software would be needed, as well as additional training. Furthermore, the network engineers should have enough time to install, test and plan a careful conversion, which takes lots of resources.
IF administration is wise, they will provide what is needed, even if it makes the accountants cringe.
IF administration thinks they are network engineers, or the accountants have override capabilities, or administration and the accountants have read 'technical' articles about ideal network upgrades, the network engineers are given 'reasonable' deadlines that have no ties to reality.
These 'reasonable' deadlines force shortcuts to be taken, thus increasing the changes of fires starting.
(I will admit that there are instances where network engineers tweak a perfectly good system and cause problems. At the same time, it is hard to tell a network engineer based system tweak gone wrong from an administration requested system tweak gone wrong.)
Sounds like your friends have played D&D for a long time but haven't developed the skills to teach it. I know that D&D can be learned at an earlier age. My 16 year old has been playing it since he was nine or ten. Of course it helped that he had people to help him out with the details. One of his characters, a fighter named Artemis, got to be well known for his slice and dice abilities. He had a set of bastard swords, magical and otherwise, and heavy duty armor that made him a terror against a variety of foes.
This would be more of an ASCAP issue, so if the lawyer is from the RIAA, they are working outside their legal turf.
Do note that the singing the song 'Happy Birthday' without paying ASCAP may still be illegal. I'm not sure if the copyright on the song has expired.
I would definitely agree that transparency in elections and government, with the elimination of paid political advertising, would be worth the cost of a universal fiber optic network. It is much too easy to 'buy' elections, except when the people in office are doing too many things that the voters dislike. If people could be shown how they could promote freedom and democracy through a slight increase in utility costs, then they would buy into it. I have to disagree with your comment about freedom and democracy not being as valuable as asphalt. They are symbiotic. If you don't have low cost ways of delivering physical goods and services, you can't provide the basics people need for living. One result is anarchy. Another is the creation of fiefdoms that provide services. Neither supports freedom and democracy. Physical mobility, on the other hand, does support freedom and democracy. If you don't like what the local politicians are doing, you can go down to their meetings and protest in person, which has a much bigger impact than something like email. In some instances, you can run for office, contacting groups, in person, to get their support, which also has a bigger impact than email, websites or paper flyers. And if it looks like things won't change barring a revolution, you can always leave. None of the above would be easy without asphalt or the equivalent. While there are other options other than asphalt, they also cost more than a good fiber optic network. Until we can get Star Trek style transporters, or their functional equivalent, we will need that asphalt to help keep freedom and democracy functional. At the same time, the universal fiber optic network is also needed. If high quality telecommuting were made possible through a universal fiber optic network, then the amount of asphalt roads could be reduced, even for such things as manufacuring. You would still need roads for some people, but the amount could be reduced. If high quality shopping were possible through this network, via virtual malls and virtual reality, then the amount of asphalt roads could also be reduced, as well as the amount of paved parking. That would save lots of money that is hidden in the cost of goods sold. ('Free' parking is paid by higher costs to consumers.) If high quality medical care were possible through this network, perhaps through the science fiction concept of AutoDocs, then road reduction would be possible. Heck, preventative medical care could reduce the need for hospitals and their attendant transportation needs, for more cost reductions. There will, of course, be a point where you can't reduce the need for asphalt, at least with current technologies. But if you promote universal fiber optic networks as a way of keeping your taxes lower while promoting freedom and democracy, you may get a good sized following. Your biggest problem will be convincing those people who want that asphalt because they live and die by their vehicles and they hate having to deal with traffic.
If you are an urban transportation engineer, or a city slicker who thinks that milk comes from a store, the words 'dirt track' would definitely apply to a grader and gravel road.
I suspect that we are dealing with language differences. Your 'dirt track' and my grader and gravel 'road' are probably identical in structure but different in name.
If you happen to be the person who is building that grader and gravel road for access to different parts of your property, and perhaps your neighbor's property, you are not likely to use much of the additional equipment and supplies you mentioned because it costs too much. At the same time, because it isn't intended for heavy use, the grader and gravel road is more than adequate for your needs.
There will, of course, be trouble spots along this type of road that you will have to maintain more often. A load of gravel in your pickup truck, picked up at a neighbor's quarry and dropped off every few days when you have the time, would be your response to many of these trouble spots. And since you are eating and sleeping anyway, as well as doing the driving for other reasons, the costs are your time and a small amount of cash to pay for the extra gas used.
The results, even with wear and tear, may not be a 'road' by some definitions, but it would likely be a road to the person putting it in and would appear on maps as a 'dirt road' or 'unimproved road', at least in the United States.
To put all of this in context, several people, including George Bernard Shaw, Alistair Cooke and Winston Churchill, have said that 'Britain and America are two nations separated by a common language'. I suspect that also applies to Australia and America.
I'm quite aware that the unit cost of fibre optics is cheaper than the other infrastructure. (At least the cable/conduit side is.)
Of course, it is a lot easier to get by without fibre optics than it is to do without water, power, and physical access. The original statement was wondering why developed countries could afford roads but not fibre optics. I tried answering that.
I was bringing up that comparison because the other infrastructure is essential and preexisting while fibre optic infrastructure is not quite at that level. You need to convince people that they NEED fibre optics before you are going to get them to buy into providing it at a universal level. They are already convinced that they need roads, power and other things like that.
When it comes to how infrastructure is installed, I suspect that we may be dealing with different countries in our comparisions. That and city versus countryside.
Not long ago, in the city where I live, they put in a major fibre optic network in hope of stimulating internet based business downtown. They were tearing up the streets in a high rise area to put in the backbone, with extra capacity for additional fibre.
If they were just crossing the streets to get to the spaces under the sidewalks, then things would have been a lot neater and there would have been less disruption. They could have drilled across and kept the streets intact. But they weren't, I suspect due to property issues.
In less dense areas, telephone/power poles tend to be the distribution means of choice, except in those areas where the utilities are underground. The owners of those poles get to charge others for usage in some instances. That adds to the cost of fibre optics, just as it adds to the costs of cable TV.
Underground utilities can be under sidewalks, but they just as easily are in utility corridors or easements. Depending upon the developer, utilities may be put under the streets and driveways, where the odds of a homeowner digging down and cutting the connections is lower. There are, unfortunately, lots of newer subdivisions that lack sidewalks.
Your use of the word 'footpaths' and metric measurements seems to imply that you are in Great Britain or another European country. That might explain some of the differences.
I would say that one of the biggest reasons developed countries can afford roads as opposed to fibre optics is the fact that the roads have been there a lot longer and are essential for life. While the Internet IS a computer highway and is causing a lot of changes, positive and negative, it is not quite as important as that expensive strip of black dirt.
Another reason is the transportation industry. There is a massive amount of political backing for roads and other non-Internet transportation like air travel. While they use the Internet, their liveblood is the money spent on the more expensive connections like roads. That probably won't change for a while either.
Do note that fibre optic broadband does have certain limits.
One, while you can order things through broadband connections, it is a little difficult to deliver physical items like food, drink, clothing, network hardware and other physical essentials over broadband. You still need roads for that, given existing tech limits.
Two, people sometimes leave their homes to do things like go to school, work, go shopping, attend non-network meetings/events, get medical help, eat out and other activities that require physical presence. This also requires roads.
Now it would be nice if broadband could enable people to reduce the amount of physical travel they do, thus reducing the need for a lot of that 'black strip of dirt' in front of my property. In time, I think it could IF people realized how much money they are spending on it. (I would love to turn the semi-arterial in front of my property to a tree lined residential street. I think it could be done if people drove less because they could do more with broadband.)
While I would love to have fibre optic cables to every location in the country, I don't want the companies putting it in to make a mess out of everything while they are putting it in.
For example, if they are going to be tearing up expensive roads to put in underground fiber optic cables, they need to pay the full cost of repairing the roads to the original quality of the roads. Furthermore, they need to coordinate with local governments and utilities so that the roads aren't being torn up every six months when yet another company puts in fibre. (Yes it creates more expense. But those roads are going to be needed for a few more decades.)
Now if the companies are using the telephone poles in my back yard, then they need to work with the organizations that control those poles as well as local government. Too many lines strung to the same poles can create an eyesore. Abandoned lines can also create an eyesore. A bit of cooperation among all the groups trying to use those poles would go a long way to getting broadband to everybody AND keep expenses down.
There is still the problem of distance, especially in rural areas. While fibre optic cables may be cheap relative to paved roads, it is still expensive if you are trying to connect a group of houses that are a couple of miles away from the main trunk. This happens a lot more in the United States than it does in a much smaller and more urbanized area like Japan or South Korea.
Do note that Japan and South Korea should be considered developed countries. But their size and population densities make it easier to do the connections. (If you combine the areas and population of Japan and South Korea, using some Wikipedia numbers, you have an area of about 477,000 square kilometers and a population of 176 million. Compare this to Texas with an area of 695,000 square kilometers and a population of almost 24 million. Even with 'cheap' fiber optics, it is still expensive to make those connections.)
It would be interesting to do comparisions of fibre optic cable installation costs versus types of roads on a per linear foot basis. This would need to include such things as repeater stations for the fibre and signage for the roads. I suspect that dirt roads in the country may be cheaper, especially in places that don't get much rain.
If you are flying in the western states, you have to watch out for a phenomena called cumulo graniti. West of the Rockies, once you are above 7000 feet (An overestimate) you are unlikely to crash into a mountain. In the western states, there are lots of mountains taller than 7000 feet. Having the sunlight available at the end of a work day gives you the extra edge you need to avoid encountering cumulo graniti if you want to get in some flight time.
I have a number of relatives who are farmers that also work on non-farm jobs. Depending upon the hours of their non-farm job, they don't necessarily work in synch with the sunlight. For some of them, DST is a boon because it makes the light 'available' when they are not at their non-farm job. For others, especially when dealing with dairy cows, it can be a pain for the farmer and workers, because you may not want to change the milking schedule to accomodate changes in time.
Some businesses may be running on a 24/7 basis, like WalMart and card driven gas stations, but that is more of an exception. I've found that many businesses operate on a 1000 to 2100 basis, while others seem to function with a 0800 to 1800 schedule. And when it comes to manufacturing, while some firms run 24/7, others run two shifts and some run only one.
If you happen to work for a 24/7 organization that allows flex time, then changing your schedule negates the need for DST. The rest of us, unfortunately, have to be available during so called peak business hours. That is where DST is useful, especially if you have something close to an 0800 to 1700 job and want to do something outdoors after work.
I do find it interesting that you assume that people are running the heat or the air conditioning almost 24/7. With a properly designed house, and auxiliary control mechanisms (sweaters for winter and blinds for summer) you can greatly cut back on heating and air conditioning. A lot of people use that technique, especially when they want to have money available for things other than utility bills.
I also find the comment about crops and DST to be a little bit strange. The biggest impact that DST would have would be on the farmers that have day jobs that are not in farming. If they had the flex time you speak about, then DST would not be useful. But I suspect that most of them don't, so having DST might give them more daylight at the end of the non-farm work day.
The countries in question are small and high tech, with population densities that make it a lot cheaper to provide services. I also suspect that lot sizes are smaller, so the costs of physically connecting to broadband are cheaper.
In the US, with certain exceptions like NYC and San Francisco, we have lower densities so it requires longer runs for physical wiring. This can be a major problem if you are looking at various forms of DSL, which have distance restrictions. Even if the cost differences in the wiring are relatively trivial, you would need a greater number of distribution nodes to serve the same number of drop points. In this, all of the broadband providers are in the same boat.
Then you have our laws regarding utilities and property rights. While people may want the services that come in on the wires, broadband included, they often object to stringing more wires. Furthermore, the organizations that put up the poles, or the underground utility corridors, aren't usually going to let others use their facilities for free. That's another cost that the broadband providers have to handle, reducing their ability to make a profit and their incentive to enter a market.
As a further complication to the above, local governments often restrict competition through agreements with various service providers. The idea, in an ideal situation, is to get the best price/service possible for the community while avoiding mayfly organizations that could spend millions and leave the community without the services. Whether this works depends upon the community.
While it would be nice to have increased broadband competition, I would hate to have it be the type that ends up with dozens of extra lines on telephone poles or streets that are torn up every few weeks because yet another group wants to provide services.
That does bring up another point. Do either Japan or S. Korea have NATIONAL telecommunication companies that provide the backbone for broadband? If they do, that might be another reason for their advantages.
From what I've have read, he placed a trojan on a site that had a high probablity of being frequented by pedophiles. It was downloaded to about 3K machines, not 30K. (Where you got the 30K number, and him setting up cameras, makes me wonder about some of your facts.)
He then checked those machines for activities that hinted the user of the machine was doing more than simply viewing. That gave him enough evidence of the higher level activities for him to contact the police.
The fact that he was able to take control of the computers does bring up the spectre of planting evidence. Unless you are a security expert who tracks and logs everything going in and out via a network connection, you could be victimized by an unethical cracker. If the evidence planter worked at it long enough, they could build a substantial history of 'evidence' and keep it concealed until it is leaked to the authorities. And if unethical groups are behind the hacking, that 'evidence' could be backed up in the real world with bank accounts and credit cards.
If you are being really paranoid, you almost need to have two types of personal computers. One is used for the things you want to save and does NOT have a connection to an external network. The other is a sacrificial machine that you clear frequently so that planted evidence gets wiped.
Of course, that still wouldn't prevent simple breaking and entering, with some quick sneakernet downloads of planted evidence. But if you had a hidden computer with cameras monitoring the secured computers, you might be able to prove that there was the possibility of planted evidence.
Now, at what point does caution cross over into paranoia?
The loophole is kind of like somebody seeing a major crime being committed while trespassing. While they are doing something illegal, it is a misdemeanor. If the crime they see is a felony, then their eyewitness testimony is valid.
Since when is the idea of using DC power to directly run computers and peripherals a crackpot idea?
I've been thinking about this one for several years, especially since I realized that one of the big heat sources of a desktop computer, the power supply, is usually placed INSIDE the box. If it were placed outside, with proper shielding, a lot of your cooling problems would be reduced.
From there it isn't that much of a stretch to the idea of placing all the power supplies outside the hardware they drive. Cooling needs are reduced and if the power supply fails, you just swap it out. (We're actually getting places with this concept. And in some instances, some of the parts, usually power cords, are interchangeable.)
The next conceptual step looks at the fact that you still have the power supplies generating heat while providing the DC power needed for the hardware. By eliminating the need to do this, you save power and reduce heat generation. Of course, you will need to play games with voltage. And, since the utilities don't usually provide DC power, you need a source.
Batteries, recharged by local sources so you don't have a lot of line loss, would work. One of the biggest problems would be getting the extra lines in place, working with the utilities.
Personally I would love to do it in my house, for the half dozen or so computers we currently have, but I lack the expertise and cash to pull it off. When playing with electricity and wiring, I'll leave it to the experts.
The biggest drawback I see to such a thing in the house is the fact that the computers, when on, provide a certain amount of auxiliary heating in winter.
If you're in a big city, you might have a 24 hour society, though I suspect that the majority of the population is daylight driven.
Elsewhere, daylight rules, especially if you want to do things other than stay indoors all the time. Having that extra daylight at the end of the work day is nice. Having daylight at 0400 is a pain, even with blackout curtains.
And while flextime can allow people to 'create' more free time during daylight hours, it is not universal and it is often restricted when is is available. Businesses frequently have 'core' hours they need covered and even with flex time you may not gain a lot of extra daylight.
Does a fire engine have to be able to make a U-turn on a residential street? Do note that there are different lengths of fire engines. Some residential streets seem to be designed so that a hook and ladder fire engine could make a turn. Of course, the odds of that vehicle being needed in a suburban neighborhood with single story houses are slim. This is where rules can be senseless when they are applied to ALL areas.
There is also some problems with the wide roads when it comes to public safety. A narrow street with lots of cars parked on it tends to slow people down. Slower vehicles reduce the damage that occurs when accidents happen. I've seen statistics that say a pedestrian has a good chance of surviving an car accident when the car is moving at 20 MPH. When the speeds are 35MPH or higher, the pedestrian is as good as dead.
Then there is a cost that many people ignore. Streets eventually need repaving. Wider streets will cost more to repave.