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John Lemke

FCC to buy out TV broadcasters to free up mobile spectrum | Ars Technica - 0 views

    • John Lemke
       
      I had my first issue at step one, "asks broadcasters to tell the FCC how much it wold take for the agency to buy them out".  They claim that this is a way to keep cost down by hopefully grabbing the least popular via low bids.   I see two issues immediately.  Number one by asking them what they want they are going to immediately INCREASE the bids.  Two, if you are asking me what I want for my business to change how it broadcasts why would I not include any expense to make the switch. By asking them what they think a fair bid would be, they are, more or less, giving them a blank check.
  • the commission will put the newly-freed blocks of spectrum up for auction. If, as expected, the spectrum is more valuable when used for mobile services than broadcast television, then the FCC should reap significantly more from these traditional auctions than it had to pay for the spectrum in the original reverse auctions, producing a tidy profit for taxpayers.
    • John Lemke
       
      The objective at an auction is to purchase the object at the lowest possible cost.  How much mobile providers are willing to pay will determine how high bids will climb.  Based on how our current mobile providers already provide poor service when compared to the rest of the world, how much is that bandwidth actually worth to these companies that, more or less, have a lobbied stranglehold on the consumer?
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  • Bergmayer also praised an FCC proposal to update its "spectrum screen," a set of rules that prevent any single provider from gaining too large a share of the spectrum available in a particular market. The current scheme, he said, "treats all spectrum alike, even though some spectrum bands are better-suited to mobile broadband than others." As a result, he argued, it has become ineffective at preventing Verizon and AT&T from gaining enough spectrum to threaten competition. He urged the FCC to revise the rules to ensure the new auctions don't further entrench the dominance of the largest incumbents.
    • John Lemke
       
      It is the stuff like this that worries me, on one hand they want a high bid, and on the other it is going to be regulated.
  • Over the last decade, it has become increasingly obvious that America's spectrum resources are mis-allocated. The proliferation of cell phones, and more recently smartphones and tablets, has given mobile providers a voracious appetite for new spectrum. But a big chunk of the available spectrum is currently occupied by broadcast television stations. With more and more households subscribed to cable, satellite, and Internet video services, traditional broadcast television is looking like an increasingly outmoded use of the scarce and valuable airwaves.
  • incumbent broadcasters have controlled their channels for so long that they've come to be regarded as de facto property rights. And needless to say, the politically powerful broadcasters have fiercely resisted any efforts to force them to relinquish their spectrum.
  • incentive auctions
  • The plan has three phases. In the first phase, the FCC will conduct a reverse auction in which it asks broadcasters to tell the FCC how much it would take for the agency to buy them out. Presumably, the least popular (and, therefore, least profitable) channels will submit the lowest bids. By accepting these low bids, the FCC can free up the maximum possible spectrum at the minimum cost
John Lemke

Japanese company proposes to build solar power cells on the Moon to provide clean energ... - 0 views

  • the 11,000 mile Lunar equator
  • will beam microwave and laser energy to giant energy conversion facilities on Earth. These beams will travel to semiconductors and inverters which will convert that energy to clean electricity to the grid that will power households, businesses and factories.
  • Shimizu’s plan uses Earthly materials, ceramics, water, glass, concrete, oxygen and solar cells. They would not ship water from Earth, they will make user of the Moon’s own resources and reduce the lunar soil using hydrogen shipped from our planet and then extract the water for use in construction.
John Lemke

Ask Ethan #55: Could a Manned Mission to Mars Abort? - Starts With A Bang! - Medium - 0 views

  • No humans have ever traveled farther away from Earth than the crew of Apollo 13 did, as they circled around the far side of the Moon close to lunar apogee, achieving a maximum distance of 400,171 km above the Earth’s surface on April 15, 1970. But when the first manned spaceflight to another planet occurs, that record will be shattered, and in a mere matter of days.
  • The way we currently reach other worlds with our present technology — or any remote location in the Universe — involves three distinct stages:The initial launch, which overcomes the Earth’s gravitational binding energy and starts our spacecraft off with a reasonably large (on the order of a few km/s) velocity relative to the Earth’s motion around the Sun.On-board course corrections, where very small amounts of thrust accelerate the spacecraft to its optimal trajectory.And gravity assists, where we use the gravitational properties of other planets in orbit around the Sun to change our spacecraft’s velocity, either increasing or decreasing its speed with every encounter.It’s through the combination of these three actions that we can reach any location — if we’re patient and we plan properly — with only our current rocket technology.
    • John Lemke
       
      How we can do it now, if we plan right.
  • The initial launch is a very hard part right now. It takes a tremendous amount of resources to overcome the Earth’s gravitational pull, to accelerate a significant amount of mass to the Earth’s escape velocity, and to raise it all the way up through the Earth’s atmosphere.
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  • The most optimal one for a one-way trip to Mars, for those of you wondering, that minimizes both flight time and the amount of energy needed, involves simply timing your launch right.
    • John Lemke
       
      The cheapest and the fastest. The one way ticket option.
  • When a planet orbits the Sun, there’s a lot of energy in that system, both gravitational energy and kinetic energy. When a third body interacts gravitationally as well, it can either gain some energy by stealing it from the Sun-planet system, or it can lose energy by giving it up to the Sun-planet system. The amount of energy performed by the spacecraft’s thrusters is often only 20% (or less) of the energy either gained-or-lost from the interaction!
    • John Lemke
       
      The transfer of energy involved to change speeds.
John Lemke

Fraud and Embezzlement Drives Anti-Piracy Group into Bankruptcy | TorrentFreak - 0 views

  • The organization’s board filed for bankruptcy after it discovered a wide range of serious problems. The group’s financial statements were falsified, the books were not in order, and taxes haven’t been paid since 2007.
  • CEO Snæbjörn Steingrímsson has admitted to embezzlement
  • The last time SMAIS made international headlines was last year, when the group pulled its Facebook page offline after four days. According to Steingrímsson, SMAIS didn’t have enough resources to handle the constant flaming comments from the public.
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