On Wireless Connectivity

Lets face it, as much as we love our country, we have fallen behind the frontrunners in regards to technology. America does lots of things very well. Our entertainment media is the envy of the world. Our East Coast market cities are the dream of many an immigrant. Our spacious countryside is a relief to those crammed on an island with millions of other people. Our technology however, especially in the field of wireless communications, could use some work.

Most of our problems stem from the lack of infastructure. Just recently we made the final switch between analogue and digital cell phone towers. Now that carriers are finally free of the burdensome task of maintaining analogue infustructure to match their new digital infastructure, perhaps there will be money for improvement. Carriers must not only placate the masses by providing enough speed and bandwidth for them to do all the stupid things the advertisments tell them they like doing, but they must look to the future, and build a network that will allow individuals and businesses to compete on an international level. By now internet should be the new radio. Personally, I already listen to web radio whenever I have a working connection. And there you have the problem. I do not always have a working internet connection on my phone or other devices. My phone has 3G in most of the city, but it is prohibitivly expensive. If I am downtown, at school, or at a coffeeshop, I have wifi access. If I am at home I can tether to the wall. Where is the standardized network that will unify our technical lives and provide connectivity without boarder or end?

While we are finally beginning to build out our 3G networks to smaller towns and cities, most of the world is putting together state of the art 4G networks! Even Russia is building a 4G network right now. Tell that to your grandfather and he might cry out of shame. Japan, perhaps one of the most advanced countries when it comes to technology, aided by their relatively small geographic footprint, and extremely dense population centers, has made video calling relatively standard and has wireless connection speeds that will make you wet yourself. Putting aside wireless for a second, Japan recently offered to consumers (not just built in a lab) fiber optic connections that would allow 1Gb/s synchronous traffic in the home. Thats 1Gig per second in, and one gig per second out, at the same time! You could send the entire contents of a typical american harddrive in about 2 and a half minutes. Back to the topic of 4G, Europe too has begun to build 4G networks. Our falling behind the curve is also part of the reason why we get older less capable devices. If you are interested in a good phone and have a few minutes search the web for my dream device: the Touch Pro HD. Available in Asia, Russia, and parts of Europe it has a screen with a pixel count comparable to that of a netbook. That's a laptop screen on a phone!

What can we do about it?

Step One: Open Networks

We must stop our restrictive practices of locking phones to carriers and limiting mobile access to the web. Additionally, all throttling of speeds on any internet protocol must be eliminated. Phones should be bought from the manufacturer, sim cards should be bought from the carrier.

Step Two: Standardised Networks

America has to standardise our networks. Currently most US carriers use GSM based phones, but a few carriers use CDMA. While CDMA has its benefits, it is not as open, it is owned by one specific company and it is not used in much of the world. Japan, Europe, and Russia all use GSM. So Verizon and Cricket: It's time to switch. Why is this so important? If all carriers are using the same standard, we can establish a better functioning and more robust wireless bandwidth marketplace. If one carrier does not want to build towers in a certain area, they can buy or trade for bandwidth from another carrier that does provide service in that area. Also, if a carrier experiences an unexpected amount of network usage that would exceed their ability to provide service, they can use bandwidth from another carrier who might be experiencing a less than average load. A unified protocol makes this standard. It also means that when we take our phones to another country, we have only to remove the sim card from our carrier and insert one from the foreign carrier.

Step Three: Charge for Data not Content

In the US a lot of carriers are trying to sell content. Their content is usually substandard, but it is pushed on the consumer by placing shortcuts all over the phone, and making it cheaper to access than other options event though it is inferior. This practice is in violation of the spirit of network neutrality and must end. If we want to move alongside th e technological leaders of this age, charges levied against consumers must be based on bandwidth consumed, not on content.

Step Four: Modern Networks

It's time to upgrade our 3G networks. I don't care if they are still selling iPhones. They won't work any worse than they do now. It is true that the iPhone fanatic in rural Montana might never get his 3G connection, but should we really impeded the progress of the nation while we extend 3G to areas like this where it may not even be profitable? Isn't that what all you hypercapitalists are always whining about? The profit is in the cities, it's time to upgrade the networks. We need to be on the edge. Let's analyse how the 4G transition is coming around the world. If it's just beginning, it's time to jump on board. If 5G standards are already available, it would be advisable to skip directly from 3 to 5. Yes, it will be expensive, but no one ever said being one of the best would be cheap.

A few stats:

4G Networks:

100 Mb/s moving at high speed

1 Gb/s stationary access

And thats about all you get, because everything else I could find was so ripe with technobabble even I couldn't understand it.

Image Credit: Flick'r User "Smith" under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence

503 Billion Barrels of Oil on American Soil!

The U. S. Geological Service issued a report in April ('08) that only scientists and oil men knew was coming, but man was it big. It was a revised report (hadn't been updated since '95) on how much oil was in this area of the western 2/3 of North Dakota ; western South Dakota ; and extreme eastern Montana and check THIS out:

The Bakken is the largest domestic oil discovery since Alaska's Prudhoe Bay, and has the potential to eliminate all American dependence on foreign oil. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates it at 503 billion barrels.. Even if just 10% of the oil is recoverable at $107 a barrel, we're looking at a resource base worth more than $5.3 trillion. 'When I first briefed legislators on this, you could practically see their jaws hit the floor. They had no idea.' says Terry Johnson, the Montana Legislature's financial analyst.

“This sizable find is now the highest-producing onshore oil field found in the past 56 years.” reports The Pittsburgh Post Gazette. It's a formation known as the Williston Basin, but is more commonly referred to as the 'Bakken.' And it stretches from Northern Montana, through North Dakota and into Canada. For years, U. S. oil exploration has been considered a dead end. Even the 'Big Oil' companies gave up searching for major oil wells decades ago. However, a recent technological breakthrough has opened up the Bakken's massive reserves.... and we now have access of up to 500 billion barrels. Because this is light, sweet oil, those billions of barrels will cost Americans just $16 PER BARREL! That's enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight.

And if THAT didn't throw you on the floor, then this next one should - because it's from TWO YEARS AGO!


U. S. Oil Discovery- Largest Reserve in the World! Stansberry Report Online - 4/20/2006.

Hidden 1,000 feet beneath the surface of the Rocky Mountains lies the largest untapped oil reserve in the world. It is more than 2 TRILLION barrels. On August 8, 2005 President Bush mandated its extraction. In three and a half years of high oil prices none has been extracted. With this mother load of oil why are we still fighting over off-shore drilling?

They reported this stunning news: We have more oil inside our borders, than all the other proven reserves on earth. Here are the official estimates:

- 8-times as much oil as Saudi Arabia
- 18-times as much oil as Iraq
- 21-times as much oil as Kuwait
- 22-times as much oil as Iran
- 500-times as much oil as Yemen
- and it's all right here in the Western United States .

HOW can this BE? HOW can we NOT BE extracting this? Because the environmentalists and others have blocked all efforts to help America become independent of foreign oil! Again, we are letting a small group of people dictate our lives and our economy....WHY? James Bartis, lead researcher with the study says we've got more oil in this very compact area than the entire middle east more than 2 TRILLION barrels untapped. That's more than all the proven oil reserves of crude oil in the world today, reports The Denver Post. Don't think 'OPEC' will drop its price - even with this find? Think again! It's all about the competitive marketplace, - it has to. Think OPEC just might be funding the environmentalists? Got your attention/ire up yet? While you're thinking about it, and hopefully more than a little angry, do this:

Pass this along. If you don't take a little time to do this, then you should not complain about gas prices, because by doing NOTHING, you've forfeited your right to complain.

By the way...this is all true. Check it out at the link below!
GOOGLE it or follow this link. It will blow your mind.
http://www..usgs.gov/newsroom/article.asp?ID=1911
or http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3868

Real Beer May be Real Bad for Local Economy

Greetings Coloradan!

I don’t really know where my readership, if indeed I have any, comes from, but even if you are not from Colorado you may still find this article interesting.
I am writing in response to the recent push to legalise the sale of “real beer,” that is beer with alcohol content in excess of three and two tenths percent by volume, in grocery stores, convenience stores, and other establishments which were previously restricted to the sale of “near beer,” beer with an alcohol content of no more than three and two tenths percent by volume. An oversimplified explanation of the conflict would be 7/11 vs. Local Liquor. Both sides of the argument have valid points,

Supporters of the current laws are most likely to cite protection of the local economy, protection of youth, and preservation of selection as their primary grounds for maintaining the current regulations. I would like to examine these claims one at a time. Colorado law is very strict about what liquor stores can and cannot do. Liquor stores may not carry most food products, must carefully control who they sell too, and were formally forced to remain closed on Sundays. Additionally, the ability of liquor stores to form chains is severely restricted. All these factors have worked together to create a locally owned liquor industry composed mostly of mom and pop style stores with a few larger stores mixed in. Some offer convenient locations; some offer unmatchable selections. Opponents of the repeal of our current laws fear that if grocery stores were permitted to sell full strength beer, it would cut into the profit margins of the local stores, and would also reduce the selection of beers available. While a grocery store is probably going to carry only Budweiser, Keystone Light (otherwise known as watered down piss), and Coors, a locally owned liquor store, which only sells alcohol, is far more likely to carry hard to find, local, and exotic products like Warsteiner, Phantom Canyon, Gruenfelder, Bristol, etc. Both the preservation of this selection and the protection of these local businesses are likely to benefit customers and independent businessmen in Colorado. Another argument likely to be cited by opponents of the change in our alcohol laws is that by increasing the amount of outlets licensed to sell real beer, we will be making it easier for underage drinkers to obtain alcohol. It is plain and evident to anyone who has not purposefully deluded themselves into believing otherwise, that the National Minimum Drinking Age Act is an utter, complete, ridiculous, and ludicrous failure. Rather than making things safer, the MLDA has had the effect of pushing teen drinking underground into more dangerous situations, and rather than teaching moderation and responsibility has enshrined alcohol as the “forbidden fruit” of twenty-first century America. There are very few countries with drinking ages near as high as ours, yet many of them have less of a problem with irresponsible consumption of alcohol than we do. I would argue that parents should set a positive example in their own drinking habits and raise their children to do the same. It should not be a crime to pour a twelve year old a glass of Champaign on New Year’s Eve. Every young person should experience puking their guts out into a toilet, or falling down a flight of stairs at least once in order to foster a respect for alcohol and the responsibility that comes with its consumption. So while these lobbyists may have other valid arguments, the protection of youth is absolutely invalid.

While supporters of the law cite their various grounds for it to be upheld, opponents are not without arguments of their own. Proponents of the liberalisation of Colorado’s alcohol laws are likely to cite increased competition and fair business practices in support of their position. The change in laws would also have the desirable effect of making alcohol more visible possibly diminishing its taboo status in American society which has contributed to our generally unhealthy view of its consumption, and the unhealthy patterns of consumption often prevalent among College Students and others. Proponents of the free market (don’t get me started) would likely argue that by repealing these blue laws, we will create more competition which would drive down the price of beer. They may be correct, but as previously stated, this would not be the only effect. Also, they allege that it is an injustice that the liquor companies are permitted to sell full strength beer while the grocery stores are restricted to near beer. This makes me wonder if they would support legislation permitting liquor stores to sell food and other items in addition to liquor.

The liberalisation of alcohol laws in Colorado is a complex issue, and the many faceted arguments do not lead to any concrete conclusion, but rather raise more questions and beg us to furthur examine the issues at hand. One thing is certain: the US as a whole needs to rethink its attitude toward the consumption of alcohol and bring it more into line with logic, and that of the rest of the world.

Photo Credit: piffy under an Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Speed Doesn't Kill, Idiots Do: Why we need real drivers training. (An Intro)

Its been a while since I've made a longer post. I have decided to publish something that I wrote a while back. This is not new, but after looking through it I found that most of the ideas were still relevant.

Contrary to popular belief, even among traffic engineers, it is not speed that makes a driver dangerous, but a combination of other factors which may or may not include speed depending on the situation. From a purely scientific viewpoint, speed, until you reach the speed of light and cause strange things to start happening, is completely harmless. We are spinning through space at speeds so extreme we can hardly fathom what it would be like to pass an object at that speed. Some of us ride bullet trains or maglev trains that reach speeds as high as 360kph. Travellers ride on jets going down the runway at speeds faster than those most cars are capable of. Despite these many instances of speed people’s daily lives, the belief that “speed kills” is still widely held. If anything, all these examples of safe speeding should tell us that it is possible to design our cars and roads in a way that permits rapid and safe use as well.
In 1974 the Federal Government of the United States mandated that all states lower their speed limits to no more than 55 miles per hour. At that time, a lot of freeways were posted with limits similar to those found in rural western states today, namely 70-80 miles per hour. While proponents of lower speed limits cite the fact that traffic fatalities dropped after the implementation of the national speed limit, it is likely that the drop in fatalities was a result of several other factors.
- The gas crisis meant people couldn’t drive as much. No gas, less drivers, less accidents. That’s logical.
- Car technology has continuously evolved creating faster and safer vehicles.
-The 55 mile per hour speed limit was ignored on a widespread basis, and some states even aided scofflaws by capping tickets at 65 miles per hour enabling them to travel 75, twenty miles an hour over the speed limit, while only having to fear a 10 mile an hour ticket which had been reduced in price to about $5.
The police realized that they had better things to do than harass drivers who were driving a completely reasonable speed. If technology continues to evolve, and cars get safer, faster, and more efficient, why are we dropping speed limits and not raising them?
The biggest threat to road safety in the US is untrained, incapable, and intoxicated drivers. Our driver training programs are a joke. There are countless cases of people being taught about driving for a few hours one afternoon, going to the DMV, and passing the test. Drivers training should be an ordeal. It should be intense, difficult, and thorough. Not everyone will pass; as a matter of fact, some people will never be able to get their license, because some people are simply incapable of driving in a way that provides for the safe and rapid conveyance of traffic. Signing and striping should be standardised throughout the US. While it may not be immediately possible, US signage should be standardised to be similar to that of Europe, one of the most advanced, and car saturated locations in the world. Europe’s use of symbols rather than textual legends, and dedication to good traffic engineering and extensive public transit is an excellent example to much of the world. Additional examples are the UAE, Japan, and parts of China. Drivers should be required to recognise all signs and symbols, know the unsigned laws of the road. They could demonstrate their abilities with hours in a driving simulator that automatically records performance data. Emergency driving could be taught on a local racetrack.

Image Credit: jpctalbot under a creative commons licence.

Chickens

Sorry about my chicken theme

Why did the chicken cross the road?

Aristotle: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.

Issac Newton: Chickens at rest tend to stay at rest, chickens in motion tend to cross roads.

Albert Einstein: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends on your frame of reference.

Werner Heisenberg: We are not sure which side of the road the chicken was on, but it was moving very fast.

Wolfgang Pauli: There already was a chicken on this side of the road.

On the Practise of Animal Experimentation and Vivisection

While it may not be the same for everyone, there comes a time in the average person’s life when they are sitting on a bench in a park eating a double cheeseburger when a stray dog walks up with the saddest eyes every seen, staring deep into the person’s soul begging them to find an ounce of compassion. There are also times when we are bitten by mosquitoes, shat on by birds, or climbed on by ants; yet for some reason we do not feel emotion in these cases. What is the difference between the two? Why is it that the dog appears to have emotions while the ant, bee, or fruit fly does not?
Animals have been our test dummies for years. We use them to test new drugs, test cosmetics, experiment with new surgical procedures, etc. Many people have no problem with this; while many others, most notably members of organisations such as PETA, oppose such testing. Is our justification of animal testing linked to some concept of sentience and consciousness that separates man from beast? How do we decide what is ethical and what is not. Is it ethical to test a new cancer drug on a rat? How about a new shampoo? If a person opposes testing on canines, yet supports testing on insects and small mammals, from whence do they formulate their position?

Additionally: I have included a translated version for those readers who avoid standardised spellings:

On th Praktis ov Animl Ixperimentaeshn and Vivisekshn

Whiel it mae not bee th saem fr evrywun, thair kumz a tiem in th av'rij peursn'z lief when thae aar siting on a bench in a paark eeting a dubl cheeseburger when a strae dog wauks up with th sadist iez evry seen, stairing deep in t th peursn'z soel beging them t fiend an ouns ov kmpashn. Thair aar aulsoe tiemz when wee aar bitn bie mskeetoez, shat on bie beurdz, aur kliemd on bie ants; yet fr sum reezn wee doo not feel imoeshn in theez kaesiz. Whot iz th difr'ns bitween th too? Wie iz it that th dog apeerz t hav imoeshnz whiel th ant, bee, aur froot flie {duzdoez} not? Animlz hav bin our test dumyz fr yeerz. Wee {uesuez} them t test nue drugz, test kozmetiks, ixperimnt with nue seurjikl preuseejrz, etc. Meny peepl hav noe probl'm with this; whiel meny uthrz, moest noeteubly membrz ov aurg'niezaeshnz such az PETA, apoez such testing. Iz our justifikaeshn ov animl testing linkt t sum konsept ov sentience and konshsnes that {sep'reutssep'raets} man from beest? Hou doo wee disied whot iz ethikl and whot iz not. Iz it ethikl t test a nue kansr drug on a rat? Hou about a nue shampoo? If a peursn apoeziz testing on kaenienz, yet s'paurts testing on insekts and smaul mamlz, from whens doo thae faurmuelaet thair pzishn?

Morgen kommt der Weinachtsman!

Greetings all and happy Christmas Eve. Lettucebrain is all about using your brain, so it may come as a surprise that I am giving some Christmas music recommendations here. But I assure you, any allegations that I am violating the nature of the blog are unfounded. As a matter of fact, music stimulates your rostromedial-prefrontalcortex. I have always thought one of the most interesting phenomena in existance was music. How does it work? Why does some music make us happy and sad? Why does one cultures happy music sound angry or sad to another culture? Why does music work?

Anyways, for some good old-fashioned Christmas techno and dance music visit the French radiostation Pulsradio at http://www.pulsradio.com/index.php?version=classique&op=home and click on the PULS playlist for the main station (substations are still playing regular techno and trance)

And remember: Santa listens to techno, and so should you. (unless you want coal in your stocking)

Radio la fraunce. daunce et la trauce! Puls radio. Puls Radio! PULS RADIO! P...P...P...P...P...P...P...PULS!