If you want further proof of your point, just look at other municipal services, like water and sewer. Imagine if you could actually coordinate work digging up streets! (Oh well, it'll never happen... but it sounds cool!)
The problem, public or private, is how do you maintain oversight? If the city has a budget shortfall, what happens to QoS? Do things have to break before they can be fixed? The argument for a private company is more on profit; how do you maintain a system that does not generate revenue and profit?
In SF, it makes me sick seeing all the abandoned ricochet modems on the street lights. Such a great concept, wasting away. (The wireless last mile, not Metricom's incarnation specifically.) It also burns me seeing RCN fiber boxes all over my neighborhood and knowing that there is no service in my area. From a technology standpoint, you have to get around a lot of hurdles to make a good long-term solution, not the least of which are the regulations on who is permitted to provide service; you have to have an "established" system to be able to play, which requires someone to build out a system before they can get regulatory approval to operate it.
A "Double-Conversion" UPS provides power conditioning and battery backup. Alternately, a UPS with internal choke can provide conditioning without full double-conversion. A breadbox-style UPS is usually just a single-conversion device, which works as you describe.
Usually people plug small systems in for the wrong reasons... 'what if this huge building system that is maintained regularly "breaks?" Good think I have this little box here that I've been using for the past five years without any problems..!' or 'I want to be able to move the server around the room without unplugging it' nonsense.
There are very real problems associated with plugging the little shits into a large system; the cheap inverters have trouble tracking and can create all kinds of problems.
Also, always remember that the sealed batteries only last 3-5 years if you are lucky!
First off, get rid of the stand-alone UPS systems. They are inefficient and not reliable from a system standpoint. You are much better off with a single 30kW unit rather than ten or twenty 1,000VA units. With single UPS, it is easy to either install a local panelboard (US), or a busbar distribution system (UK).
Second, anything that you do to enhance flexibility will compromise reliability. If that is an acceptable risk they go ahead and do something modular.
Given these constraints, a 30kW UPS is 100A or so three phase, 208V or 150A single-phase 208V. 120V would not be appropriate; 480V is a cheaper input feeder, more hassle for bypass.
The best solution might be to go the traditional panelboard route, and run branch circuits to all your equipment in liquidtight flexible non-metalic conduit (the blue stuff).
Alternately, you can install a 100A plug-in busbar the length of your cage and tap off 30A, 208V, 1PH for each rack. They are designed for light industrial applications, but work pretty well if you can sacrifice on reliability.
The APC solution is neat because you don't need an electrician, and it is all modular. Might not be as flexible as the component route, but it works. I think it includes managed outlets in the racks as well.
The cost of printing a magazine isn't that big of an issue. It is quickly offset by the advertising market's trust in print ads, unlike web advertisements.
I am personally much happier not getting a print magazine. They just pile up after time and don't add value.
I got a 2-year subscription a while back, and have gotten my money's worth many times over. You can get a lot of the same news stories elsewhere, but it's nice to read an AP version of a story that doesn't have quite the same conservative slant that most papers print.
It isn't much money, and it is a great resource to keep around.
(At the same time, I hope they can get a handle on their expenses and get a good long-term plan going!)
The fact remains that it is viable, especially in the near-term. Off-shore wind farms could easily provide a large portion of the energy (at least support the west coast), and large parts of North Dakota could also be used as wind farms, with little impact.
Distributing them in areas with enough wind really makes the problem of total area less important, especially when you consider the fact that wind farms take advantage of the vertical real-estate and leave the horizontal area available for other functions.
While technically feasible, the concept of line sharing IS stupid. The physical infrastructure is the monopoly issue, and should be treated as such: DSL service providers should be leasing the physical copper wires (to the extend that they are physical copper wires, anyway) from the customer to the CO.
I don't want POTS on my DSL line! I have no need for POTS! My cell phone is my primary phone number.
The market should embrace novelty, and if the cost of doing that is a second pair of wires to your home to accommodate POTS, so be it! (With the important market caveat that other people must feel the same way...) Splitting hairs over the incramental cost for DSL above POTS service is not productive.
Make the 3rd parties offer "full service" for them thar copper wires!
You don't really even need the thumbprint; just a pin code would work.
Effectively all your idea does is move the authorization number to a function of the card which can be correlated to the account number, ammount, and merchant. Throw in a datestamp, and you are set!
For that matter, why not have the merchant type in the 16-digit authorization number?
Mainly because of the upstream bandwidth limitations. 650MB would optimistically take 20 minutes to download if split among 3 DSL lines. To make it all viable, you have to build an infrastructure within a geographic area to centralize (at least a large portion of) the data, and have a very fat pipe back to the 'office.
If you can figure out a way to accept orders via SMS (or some similar non-PC, universal interface), and have the disc ready in a half hour, it can work. You'll need a cage in a telco hotel, and the vending machines distributed throughout the area.
My guess is that you would need to have about 50 machines in an area, each selling about 500 CD's each/month at a $10 markup to stand a chance at a profit.
But the shipping isn't the issue! It's a marketing model that is lacking! How do you get someone to pick from millions of songs and buy, buy, buy! Sure, when you have an old favorite that you want to get your hands on, that is one thing... but marketing new music to people is much more complicated.
The shipping cost is insignificant (especially if liners are still requried).
Hyperbaric chambers were originally used to treat various random illnesses. I don't remember if they were O2 regulated, or just compressed air, but the concept has been around for a long time......everything old is new again.
Some really great points above on college texts. One thing that is missing is what happens when people keep their books as reference materials for life? As much as the publishers would love to destroy the used-book market, how can they just give away the content of the book in some form that can be easily mutilated, and used by someone else?
It's also an interesting issue for code books (building, electrical, etc.). It would be great to have a single CD (or network appliance) that lets the user track the changes in a section over the past 50 years.
Basically, we need a way for authors and publishers to be compensated for their efforts in a manner that does not reduce the usefullness of the product. With college texts, there is a set number of copies that can be sold each semester. Anything that eats into that number forces the cost to rise.
I still have most of my engineering books. As much as they weigh, and despite the effort involved in moving them several times, I am happy to have them. Would a CD retain that same useful life?
Should organize the thoughts better, but... what the hell, this is/.
On a large scale, you have peering agreements that makes net data transfer between specific networks inexpensive. On a small scale, that accounting gets difficult, as well as issues on who is a "content provider" and who is a "content consumer."
Basically, peering agreements acknowledge the fact that services available on one network have value to another network, and vice-versa. When peering arrangements are in place, service providers are effectively only paying for capacity, and not the bandwidth itself.
This is why multi-media conglomerates owning the last mile is dangerous. It is quite easy for them to justify having poor service to content outside of their network...
I'm just curious what impact cost cutting and layoffs had on some of the companies, BofA in particular. Apparently the patch was ready to go, just never got installed. Did someone get laid off before they finished patching machines?
I have a hard time believing that the US Government would do anything that so explicitly hurts corporations without providing overwhelming benefit to citizens.
The whole point of the public domain isn't to make goods cheaper for the people, but to make those works which have become a part of our culture things that can be built upon by others.
In that way, it can actually offer more benefit to corporations... just not the huge conglomerates.
Also add 50% for cooling and you approach $5k. Not really that bad... not even that big of a farm... should be able to fit it in a little over 1,000 sq. ft.
That's just unrealistic. The real problem is that nobody ever bothered to close the loop on mail order. It is unethical for people to not pay sales tax for out-of-state purchases.
Nevertheless, I imagine most of us have offset the cost of shipping with sales tax and gone with the cheaper option. It unfortunately screws over local merchants (within the state anyway), making their goods appear more expensive.
Income tax is one of the more reasonable taxes in the US (and CA), but because of all the loopholes, the burden is not split fairly.
If you have a problem with this proposition, you should be fighting the entire tax system, not just the fair allocation of sales tax on all sales transactions.
The phone company I am doing work for is eliminating most of their standards on grounding, electrostatic discharge, EMI, and the like. Maybe a little too late?
Ideally, you want to stick the wheels on a lathe to minimize the amount of wheel surface touching the track. This should have more impact than any tweaking of aerodynamics!
Is it that perhaps this will spur new R&D in wireless devices and protocols to use this new spectrum, returning value to the economy this way? Or is there something I'm missing?
Look at the adoption rates of WiFi vs. Cellular phones. Look at other novel projects (Ricochet as an example)... there is a need for unlicensed spectrum, and the FCC's role is to allocate that resource.
As for revenue... selling off everything to the highest bidder is not necissarily the best use of a limited resource. It is much cheaper to raise income taxes to cover a budget shortfall than get a grant from a for-profit corporation that won't see returns for a decade.
If there isn't more unlicensed spectrum available, what will happen to things like software radio, which can use the spectrum more efficiently, and not have it dedicated for a single function? In the long run, doesn't that pose a greater opportunity?
Slashdot Mirror
If you want further proof of your point, just look at other municipal services, like water and sewer. Imagine if you could actually coordinate work digging up streets! (Oh well, it'll never happen... but it sounds cool!)
The problem, public or private, is how do you maintain oversight? If the city has a budget shortfall, what happens to QoS? Do things have to break before they can be fixed? The argument for a private company is more on profit; how do you maintain a system that does not generate revenue and profit?
In SF, it makes me sick seeing all the abandoned ricochet modems on the street lights. Such a great concept, wasting away. (The wireless last mile, not Metricom's incarnation specifically.) It also burns me seeing RCN fiber boxes all over my neighborhood and knowing that there is no service in my area. From a technology standpoint, you have to get around a lot of hurdles to make a good long-term solution, not the least of which are the regulations on who is permitted to provide service; you have to have an "established" system to be able to play, which requires someone to build out a system before they can get regulatory approval to operate it.
A "Double-Conversion" UPS provides power conditioning and battery backup. Alternately, a UPS with internal choke can provide conditioning without full double-conversion. A breadbox-style UPS is usually just a single-conversion device, which works as you describe.
Usually people plug small systems in for the wrong reasons... 'what if this huge building system that is maintained regularly "breaks?" Good think I have this little box here that I've been using for the past five years without any problems..!' or 'I want to be able to move the server around the room without unplugging it' nonsense.
There are very real problems associated with plugging the little shits into a large system; the cheap inverters have trouble tracking and can create all kinds of problems.
Also, always remember that the sealed batteries only last 3-5 years if you are lucky!
NO
We don't need another area source... we need better point sources for lighting! Needing 4" of depth to diffuse light isn't a problem...
Have you ever been in a space with all indirect lighting? It's terrible! There has to be some direct component for shadow/visual interest...
(Simple Solution - APC Power StruXure)
First off, get rid of the stand-alone UPS systems. They are inefficient and not reliable from a system standpoint. You are much better off with a single 30kW unit rather than ten or twenty 1,000VA units. With single UPS, it is easy to either install a local panelboard (US), or a busbar distribution system (UK).
Second, anything that you do to enhance flexibility will compromise reliability. If that is an acceptable risk they go ahead and do something modular.
Given these constraints, a 30kW UPS is 100A or so three phase, 208V or 150A single-phase 208V. 120V would not be appropriate; 480V is a cheaper input feeder, more hassle for bypass.
The best solution might be to go the traditional panelboard route, and run branch circuits to all your equipment in liquidtight flexible non-metalic conduit (the blue stuff).
Alternately, you can install a 100A plug-in busbar the length of your cage and tap off 30A, 208V, 1PH for each rack. They are designed for light industrial applications, but work pretty well if you can sacrifice on reliability.
The APC solution is neat because you don't need an electrician, and it is all modular. Might not be as flexible as the component route, but it works. I think it includes managed outlets in the racks as well.
The cost of printing a magazine isn't that big of an issue. It is quickly offset by the advertising market's trust in print ads, unlike web advertisements.
I am personally much happier not getting a print magazine. They just pile up after time and don't add value.
I got a 2-year subscription a while back, and have gotten my money's worth many times over. You can get a lot of the same news stories elsewhere, but it's nice to read an AP version of a story that doesn't have quite the same conservative slant that most papers print.
It isn't much money, and it is a great resource to keep around.
(At the same time, I hope they can get a handle on their expenses and get a good long-term plan going!)
The fact remains that it is viable, especially in the near-term. Off-shore wind farms could easily provide a large portion of the energy (at least support the west coast), and large parts of North Dakota could also be used as wind farms, with little impact.
Distributing them in areas with enough wind really makes the problem of total area less important, especially when you consider the fact that wind farms take advantage of the vertical real-estate and leave the horizontal area available for other functions.
While technically feasible, the concept of line sharing IS stupid. The physical infrastructure is the monopoly issue, and should be treated as such: DSL service providers should be leasing the physical copper wires (to the extend that they are physical copper wires, anyway) from the customer to the CO.
I don't want POTS on my DSL line! I have no need for POTS! My cell phone is my primary phone number.
The market should embrace novelty, and if the cost of doing that is a second pair of wires to your home to accommodate POTS, so be it! (With the important market caveat that other people must feel the same way...) Splitting hairs over the incramental cost for DSL above POTS service is not productive.
Make the 3rd parties offer "full service" for them thar copper wires!
Soon we will have to buy a DTV converter. There is no guarantee that HDTV will ever become a reality; it's just DTV that is required by the FCC.
DTV has 480-line modes, as well as 1080 lines.
You don't really even need the thumbprint; just a pin code would work.
Effectively all your idea does is move the authorization number to a function of the card which can be correlated to the account number, ammount, and merchant. Throw in a datestamp, and you are set!
For that matter, why not have the merchant type in the 16-digit authorization number?
Mainly because of the upstream bandwidth limitations. 650MB would optimistically take 20 minutes to download if split among 3 DSL lines. To make it all viable, you have to build an infrastructure within a geographic area to centralize (at least a large portion of) the data, and have a very fat pipe back to the 'office.
If you can figure out a way to accept orders via SMS (or some similar non-PC, universal interface), and have the disc ready in a half hour, it can work. You'll need a cage in a telco hotel, and the vending machines distributed throughout the area.
My guess is that you would need to have about 50 machines in an area, each selling about 500 CD's each/month at a $10 markup to stand a chance at a profit.
But the shipping isn't the issue! It's a marketing model that is lacking! How do you get someone to pick from millions of songs and buy, buy, buy! Sure, when you have an old favorite that you want to get your hands on, that is one thing... but marketing new music to people is much more complicated.
The shipping cost is insignificant (especially if liners are still requried).
Hyperbaric chambers were originally used to treat various random illnesses. I don't remember if they were O2 regulated, or just compressed air, but the concept has been around for a long time... ...everything old is new again.
Some really great points above on college texts. One thing that is missing is what happens when people keep their books as reference materials for life? As much as the publishers would love to destroy the used-book market, how can they just give away the content of the book in some form that can be easily mutilated, and used by someone else?
/.
It's also an interesting issue for code books (building, electrical, etc.). It would be great to have a single CD (or network appliance) that lets the user track the changes in a section over the past 50 years.
Basically, we need a way for authors and publishers to be compensated for their efforts in a manner that does not reduce the usefullness of the product. With college texts, there is a set number of copies that can be sold each semester. Anything that eats into that number forces the cost to rise.
I still have most of my engineering books. As much as they weigh, and despite the effort involved in moving them several times, I am happy to have them. Would a CD retain that same useful life?
Should organize the thoughts better, but... what the hell, this is
It's not a bug, it's a feature!
It's all about the marketing spin! Prevent those nasty macro viruses from affecting your computer!
On a large scale, you have peering agreements that makes net data transfer between specific networks inexpensive. On a small scale, that accounting gets difficult, as well as issues on who is a "content provider" and who is a "content consumer."
Basically, peering agreements acknowledge the fact that services available on one network have value to another network, and vice-versa. When peering arrangements are in place, service providers are effectively only paying for capacity, and not the bandwidth itself.
This is why multi-media conglomerates owning the last mile is dangerous. It is quite easy for them to justify having poor service to content outside of their network...
Layoffs...
I'm just curious what impact cost cutting and layoffs had on some of the companies, BofA in particular. Apparently the patch was ready to go, just never got installed. Did someone get laid off before they finished patching machines?
I have a hard time believing that the US Government would do anything that so explicitly hurts corporations without providing overwhelming benefit to citizens.
The whole point of the public domain isn't to make goods cheaper for the people, but to make those works which have become a part of our culture things that can be built upon by others.
In that way, it can actually offer more benefit to corporations... just not the huge conglomerates.
You can't get a new visa waiver if you go to Canada or Mexico; the original expiration date still applies.
Also add 50% for cooling and you approach $5k. Not really that bad... not even that big of a farm... should be able to fit it in a little over 1,000 sq. ft.
That's just unrealistic. The real problem is that nobody ever bothered to close the loop on mail order. It is unethical for people to not pay sales tax for out-of-state purchases.
Nevertheless, I imagine most of us have offset the cost of shipping with sales tax and gone with the cheaper option. It unfortunately screws over local merchants (within the state anyway), making their goods appear more expensive.
Income tax is one of the more reasonable taxes in the US (and CA), but because of all the loopholes, the burden is not split fairly.
If you have a problem with this proposition, you should be fighting the entire tax system, not just the fair allocation of sales tax on all sales transactions.
The phone company I am doing work for is eliminating most of their standards on grounding, electrostatic discharge, EMI, and the like. Maybe a little too late?
Don't forget rolling friction!
Ideally, you want to stick the wheels on a lathe to minimize the amount of wheel surface touching the track. This should have more impact than any tweaking of aerodynamics!
Doesn't Office require a license for every instance? It would be hard to save that much money going this route...