Comment Re:Other Motivation? (Score 1) 101
I'd gladly give up GPS (not that we'd have to) for actual broadband competition in this country.
The cable/telecom monopolies in this country are among the most corrupt and egregious offenders.
Comment Re:Municipal broadband is on its way, then (Score 1) 397
And you are irrelevant.
And quite frankly, eventually they will cripple or legislate away any alternatives you have.
You can't "legislate away" people's inability to afford your product.
Comment OWS, America, and The American Dream (Score 0) 933
Comment Re:From another perspective... (Score 1) 326
Once you've gone IPV6, who's going to want to go back. You'll be a Comcast customer until FIOS, DSL or whatever other competition might actually exist catches up.
Speed is useless if they disconnect your connection for using it.
Unlimited 1.5/256 DSL > than any of Comcrap's 250GB capped plans.
Comment LIFT THE DATA CAP (Score 1) 326
Wake me when these idiots offer a plan that doesn't include a 250 GB monthly data cap.
Comment Re:The 1% are insulated (Score 1) 1799
Even if you're screaming right outside their door, they're just going to call the cops and crank up the volume on the TV. I don't seriously believe that the Occupy campaign are going to do that much to change what is going on. The 1% already control everything. Everything that you buy, everything that you watch and everything that you do is controlled completely by this 1% group. Just about the only way I can think of to wrest power away from these folks is if the 99% were to stop buying everything for more than 90 days. Once the corporations see their income statements go to zilch then you would see real change.
You're forgetting the 2nd ammendment. It's there for a reason.
250+ million armed civilians will get you some hope and change.
Comment These Protesters are Targetting the Right People (Score 2) 1799
Wall St. is strangling the economy. Not the president, not congress, not even the lobbyists.
Outsourcing, H1Bs, downsizing, hostile takeovers, monopolies, mergers, automation, corruption, bribes, slave labor...you name it...it's all in the name of putting profits before human beings without exception. We used to have decent protections against these things, but since Reagan they have been systematically dismantled by both parties.
Shareholders & Boards of Directors are paying Lobbyists, and Lobbyists own Congress. If you believe otherwise...you are simply wrong.
Corporations are Sociopaths with shareholders profitting from the blood and suffering of those who get trampled in the process.
Comment Why isn't this much brighter? (Score 1) 182
I remember reading about supernovae being so bright they could be observed during the day, brighter than Venus for instance.
From History of supernova observation
The supernova SN 1006 appeared in the southern constellation of Lupus during the year 1006 CE. This was the brightest recorded star ever to appear in the night sky, and its presence was noted in China, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, Japan and Switzerland. It may also have been noted in France, Syria, and North America. Egyptian physician, astronomer and astrologer Ali ibn Ridwan gave the brightness of this star as one-quarter the brightness of the Moon. Modern astronomers have discovered the faint remnant of this explosion and determined that it was only 7,100 light-years from the Earth.[7]
It looks like this one will top out at magnitude 9 at best, making it appear like a dim star at night. How is that this supernova, if it's so close to us, appears so dim?
Can anyone clarify this? I thought type I/II supernova have roughly the same energetic magnitude...so if this one is only 21 million light years away, why isn't it brighter?
Edit: Nevermind, I figured it out. 21 million light-years vs. 7,100 light-years (the example above) is 5 orders of magnitude. It's faint because it's very very far away.
Hewlett Packard's Cult Calculator Turns 30 318
Hugh Pickens writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Hewlett Packard's HP-12C financial calculator has remained outwardly unchanged since its introduction in 1981. 'Once you learned it on the 12C, there was no need to change,' says David Carter, chief investment officer of New York wealth-management firm Lenox Advisors, who has owned his 12C for 22 years and still keeps it on his desk. 'It's not like the math was changing.' The 12C, which costs $70 on HP's website, is HP's best-selling calculator of all time, though the company won't reveal how many units it has sold over the years. The 12C still uses an unconventional mathematical notation called 'Reverse Polish Notation,' which eschews parentheses and equal signs in an effort to run long calculations more efficiently."
Comment Re:Hmmmm (Score 1) 377
Personally, I wished that they had NOT announced this and continued work on it. Now China, and probably other nations, will simply grab the work regardless of IP. Hopefully, they will keep it in the states.
IP laws will do nothing but slow the development of this technology and make it more expensive. If the government won't step in and federalize this (gas prices are killing our economy), then I'm glad China is there to ignore IP laws and make a car we can drive ASAP at less cost. The inventor(s) should be rewarded, handsomely, but our current patent system is a mess which serves big business first, and the consumer last...if ever.
The sooner we get solutions to rising gas prices the better, regardless of how that happens.
Comment Re:Link quite skimpy on details, but basically (Score 3, Insightful) 377
What is going to make or break this technology would be the weight of the battery pack needed to store all that extra energy to provide surge and low end torque. Prius has a very tiny battery, relatively, just enough to propel the car for about 2 miles. We might need a battery midway between Prius and Chevy Volt/Nissan Leaf for this technology to work. Of course, the fine tolerance manufacturing, durability of the engine and seals (the bugaboo of Wankel) and other issues might crop up.
But the basic idea is plausible. Giving it one and half (guarded) thumbs up.
The article also mentioned shedding 1000lbs by using this motor.
That's a free half-ton for more batteries which should cover the surge and low-end torque problems you mentioned.
Comment Important Missing Option: The Hottest Women (Score 1) 316
We need to clone these women. Or isolate the genes that make them hot, then create super model designer babies ASAP.
US Seeks Veto Powers Over New TLDs 220
suraj.sun writes "The Obama administration is quietly seeking the power for it and other governments to veto future top-level domain names, a move that raises questions about free expression, national sovereignty, and the role of states in shaping the future of the Internet. At stake is who will have authority over the next wave of suffixes to supplement the venerable .com, .org, and .net. At least 115 proposals are expected this year, including .car, .health, .nyc, .movie, and .web, and the application process could be finalized at a meeting in San Francisco next month."
Senators Bash ISP and Push Extensive Net Neutrality 427
eldavojohn writes "Remember when Verizon sued the FCC over net neutrality rules? Well, Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Al Franken (D-MN) see it a bit differently and have authored a new working bill titled 'Internet Freedom, Broadband Promotion, and Consumer Protection Act of 2011 (PDF).' The bill lays out some stark clarity on what is meant by Net Neutrality by outright banning ISPs from doing many things including '(6) charge[ing] a content, application, or service provider for access to the broadband Internet access service providers' end users based on differing levels of quality of service or prioritized delivery of Internet protocol packets; (7) prioritiz[ing] among or between content, applications, and services, or among or between different types of content, applications, and services unless the end user requests to have such prioritization... (9) refus[ing] to interconnect on just and reasonable terms and conditions.' And that doesn't count for packets sent over just the internet connections but also wireless, radio, cell phone or pigeon carrier. Franken has constantly reiterated that this is the free speech issue of our time and Cantwell said, 'If we let telecom oligarchs control access to the Internet, consumers will lose. The actions that the FCC and Congress take now will set the ground rules for competition on the broadband Internet, impacting innovation, investment, and jobs for years to come. My bill returns the broadband cop back to the beat, and creates the same set of obligations regardless of how consumers get their broadband.'"
Comment Re:Applies to all movies (Score 1) 170
And remember how good the Matrix seemed when we first saw it, and then how bad it seems in retrospect after seeing the rest of the Wachowski brother's "vision"? That's a movie whose impact was actually lessened by the sequels - it was better when we filled in the blanks with our imagination than when we saw what passed for the "answers" presented in Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions (the truly horrid mess of the series).
The original Star Wars movies are, thankfully, separated enough in time and form from the later prequels that many of us can still view them as they were originally (well, assuming you can find a copy of them without George Lucas' idiotic revisions) and simply pretend that the dull drivel made years later doesn't exist.
Does anyone know if the original trilogy (un-edited) has been remastered?
If so, under what format and where did you find it?
