So... considering that ARPANet first sent a successful message in 1969, why would you think that AT&T was the basis for the internet?
It seems to me the technology becoming the internet would have occurred without it. Digital packet switching was already in place. Commercial necessity would have ended up crating at least something very similar without the military needs.
So... considering that ARPANet first sent a successful message in 1969, why would you think that AT&T was the basis for the internet?
Digital communications and long distance telephone communications.
Don't you get it? ARPANet was using the exact same data packet switching equipment the telephone companies were using. Now the military added cryptography for security reasons, but the technology was the same otherwise.
So, you're saying that AT&T interconnected those packet switching devices into a network? Is that it? Before ARPANet, mind you?
And fwiw, the idea of devices passing information in discrete packets is much more important to the internet than "long distance communications".
True, but it is a natural step after time division multiplexing. It is also how digital voice gets routed from phone/city to city/phone.
Yes, I'm familiar with that, being an IT guy.
However, how do you get that Time division multiplexing leads to networking? Curious where you're gong with this.
What I'm saying is that packets were a natural next step. We went from frequency division modulation (FDM), spacing voice channels 4khz apart packing as many as 1200 channels on a single analog carrier, to TDM, to packets. Digital allows more flexibility, and using packets over FDM adds to that flexibility, especially with the rates of data we can achieve now, allows almost limitless flexibility. TDM doesn't allow for the variable compression ratios of live uncompressed data. It is still assigned fixed time slices. Priority assignments are better managed with packets, and have no fixed time slices. It is simply more efficient to use packets than assign channels or time slots.
Just that the internet would have occurred without DARPA, which wasn't my original intent to bring up. Even if it did require DARPA to exist, any funding did not set out to create the internet. Again, a spinoff. What was it, about 1986 that congress allowed their protocols to be used commercially? Do you think other protocols wouldn't have otherwise been developed?
I started by pointing out that funding for this energy harvester shouldn't be subsidized. The discussion was sidetracked with this internet idea being subsidized.
My point was that government funding can be a) useful and b) have far-reaching positive effects.
I don't think it's a sidetrack at all. What if we find some sort of "spinoff" project from researching this equipment?
seems like the back to the future car runnin on food waste
Its pretty obvious that to his pea-brain multiplexer = internet. He dumbs way way down. They are a series of ing AND gates. They key was the logic that the routers required how the configured not the creation of an 8:1 mux. Hes stupid so its no point trying to explain more than that.
Surprised WC hasn't responded again in this thread.
Just one quick interjection...
Academic ins utions (like MIT or UCLA) also receive huge endowments from the private sector... it's rather misrepresentative to suggest that the Government subsidizes all or most of the groundbreaking or transcendental work that is conducted at such ins utions...
I believe WC's main point (tax dollars aside) is that he doesn't want technologies such as this one to be politically used to pander the masses... That statement alone is not outrageous... otherwise you end up with politicians like Gore claiming to "have invented the internet" for the sake of more votes... ("Awwww... look at this guy, he's made all of our lives better - he certainly is deserving of a shot at the White House..! I mean, he gave us the internet... THE INTERNET!!")
Now... back on topic, one of my professors was working on enhancing the thermoelectric effect of materials by coating them with perfectly aligned carbon nanotube filaments... in this application, based on what I read in the article, the coupling of both of these ideas might lead to an even larger gain in conversion efficiency (heat --> electricity).
Neat stuff...
Last edited by Phenomanul; 11-07-2011 at 05:27 PM.
http://apl.aip.org/resource/1/applab...sAuthorized=noGiant thermoelectric effect in graphene
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Indeed
ARPANet was the originator... then there was X.25 built upon it, which I believe is what Cobra is talking about. Not surprised he doesn't know what he's talking about either.
At any rate, back on topic, the energy conversion mechanism this is built upon isn't really new, what's new is the ability to miniaturize it enough so the volume actually can add up to something usable.
He doesn't want to admit anything good comes out of government research.
Leave it to you to take a pretty obvious, and noted, "sarcastic" remark as the central argument in my post.
Your linked article doesn't change the fact that Al Gore's comment was still rather self-serving... all for what? political posturing?...
Most anyone with a basic understanding of the internet's potential would have supported initiatives to strengthen its infrastructure... Gore was basically claiming his insight was unique... by proxy he continues to assert that the 'internet' as we know it would have taken a different route if not for his 'key role' in pushing forward those technology initiatives which hit his desk, or those that he sponsored...
He didn't even pen those initiatives down (as they were initiatives proposed by the great communications companies of the 80's and 90's - mainly AT&T and Bell)...
Last edited by Phenomanul; 11-08-2011 at 09:17 AM.
Either way, I'm more interested in the development of the technology itself rather than where its funding is coming from...
"how do you get that Time division multiplexing leads to networking"
The entire rational of TDM, eg X.25, is to share a communications medium, eg, a network.
iow, the desire to share ( very expensive) network led to TDM as a network sharing technique.
btw, when France Telecom implemented X.25 in early 70s, they verified their network using San Antonio's Datapoint X.25 box, as being the best, most compliant X.25 implementation.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-08-2011 at 02:26 PM.
This is the point that I am trying to get to. When markets do not get needed technology researched or infrastructure built for whatever reason then that is when government steps in.
It was true when Eisenhower built the highways, Roosevelt building power grids in rural areas, AIDS research when it was widely thought that it was only contracted by sexual sex, space exploration, particle physics and all manner of works.
Our US energy and technology policy is in shambles precisely because of a powerful lobby and their sycophants such as WC. Our power grid is ed, has been ed and will continue to be ed. We are falling behind in chemistry and physics research because of the cancelling of projects in the 1990s. AIDS research was delayed a good 10 years because of antigay sentiment. The list goes on.
No one is saying that all tech needs to be researched with government funding but an intelligent focused approach only makes sense rather then lets just hope the magic market fixes everything nonsense that is perpetrated by the dumb sycophants.
That is a bit more of a fair criticism. Thank you.
I agree completely.
I would also add that funding for the types of basic research that may never be directly commercially useful, but furthering human knowledge is something I consider important.
Private industry generally won't pony up funds for this kind of stuff, as they are looking for next quarter's or next years profit margin, so it falls to governments to do that.
I can understand what you're saying, but you're not really invalidating my comment unless you're saying that X.25/TDM is more intrinsic to the creation of the internet than ARPANet was.
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