The USA trails other industrialized nations in high-speed Internet access and may never catch up unless quick action is taken by public-policymakers, a report commissioned by the Communications Workers of America warns. The median U.S. download speed now is 1.97 megabits per second - a fraction of the 61 megabits per second enjoyed by consumers in Japan, says the report released Monday. Other speedy countries include South Korea (median 45 megabits), France (17 megabits) and Canada (7 megabits). ‘We have pathetic speeds compared to the rest of the world,’ CWA President Larry Cohen says. ‘People don’t pay attention to the fact that the country that started the commercial Internet is falling woefully behind.’ Speed matters on the Internet. A 10-megabyte file takes about 15 seconds to download with a 5-megabit connection - fast for the USA. Download time with a 545-kilobit connection, about the entry-level speed in many areas: almost 2½ minutes. Broadband speed is a function of network capacity: The more capacity you have, the more speed you can deliver. Speed, in turn, allows more and better Internet applications, such as photo sharing and video streaming. Superfast speeds are imperative for critical applications such as […]
SALT LAKE CITY — If it weren’t for the hot rocks down below Earth’s crust, most of North America would be below sea level, report researchers who say the significance of Earth’s internal heat has been overlooked. Without it, mile-high Denver would be 727 feet below sea level, the scientists calculate, and New York City, more than a quarter-mile below. Los Angeles would be almost three-quarters of a mile beneath the Pacific. In fact most of the United States would disappear, except for some major Western mountain ranges, according to research at the University of Utah. ‘Researchers have failed to appreciate how heat makes rock in the continental crust and upper mantle expand to become less dense and more buoyant,’ said Derrick Hasterok, a graduate student in geology and geophysics. Hasterok and his professor, David Chapman, published their findings in the June online issue of Journal of Geophysical Research-Solid Earth. In what they said was the first calculation of its kind, the researchers said heat inside the planet accounts for half the reason land rises above sea level or higher to form mountains. Scientists previously gave other factors greater weight in explaining elevation differences, […]
NEW YORK – Americans gave nearly $300 billion to charitable causes last year, setting a new record and besting the 2005 total that had been boosted by a surge in aid to victims of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma and the Asian tsunami. Donors contributed an estimated $295.02 billion in 2006, a 1 percent increase when adjusted for inflation, up from $283.05 billion in 2005. Excluding donations for disaster relief, the total rose 3.2 percent, inflation-adjusted, according to an annual report released Monday by the Giving USA Foundation at Indiana University’s Center on Philanthropy. Giving historically tracks the health of the overall economy, with the rise amounting to about one-third the rise in the stock market, according to Giving USA. Last year was right on target, with a 3.2 percent rise as stocks rose more than 10 percent on an inflation-adjusted basis. ‘What people find especially interesting about this, and it’s true year after year, that such a high percentage comes from individual donors,’ Giving USA Chairman Richard Jolly said. Individuals gave a combined 75.6 percent of the total. With bequests, that rises to 83.4 percent. The biggest chunk of the donations, $96.82 billion or […]
Talk Radio Study Demonstrates Misuse Of Public Airwaves From Huffington Post, June 22, 2007 By Dave Johnson Free Press and The Center for American Progress have teamed up to produce a report on talk radio that is very interesting. The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. Some excerpts from the summary: Among radio formats, the combined news/talk format (which includes news/talk/information and talk/personality) leads all others in terms of the total number of stations per format and trails only country music in terms of national audience share. Through more than 1,700 stations across the nation, the combined news/talk format is estimated to reach more than 50 million listeners each week. And what options are presented to the public by these stations? * Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive. * Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk-10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk. * A separate analysis […]
Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes and the world’s largest freshwater reservoir, has fallen to its lowest level in 81 years, further evidence of the effect that climate change is having on the North American continent. The lake is a foot and a half below its long-term average. The last time it was this low was in 1926. Falling water levels mean that once-floating boat docks are high and dry, cargo vessels are severely restricted, hydroelectric power is curtailed and lakeshore ecology is changing fast. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have measured an average temperature rise of 4.5F since 1979. The warmer water is evaporating faster and holding less ice in winter. For the first time in living memory, the ice and snow that usually covers the lake by early December arrived late, allowing water to evaporate. ‘It’s been a long time since we’ve been this low, but it has happened,’ said Tim Calappi of the US Army Corps of Engineers, which is responsible for all large dams and public engineering projects in the US. ‘We still think this is within range of what’s normal, but we have to wait and see.’ Others are […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
