1,200 and Counting

[Chris Coles]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

All we can hope for in the end is to add to our knowledge and comprehension, some of which is most likely beyond our means of comprehending. Time being perhaps the most difficult. We're bound to our rock of Earthly reference.

Like taking a dog for a car ride. He digs it, he can't wait. The chances of him ever understanding the combustion engine is zero. Nevertheless, he prefers to ride with the window down.

Don, wonderful; what is the dogs name?

[don]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

Don, wonderful; what is the dogs name?

Darwin

[Chris Coles]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

The exchange underway on this thread is one of the reasons I love this place. Perhaps not directly macro-economic related, but enormously interesting...my appreciation to all above who have taken time to contribute!

By chance, this turned up on Slashdot www.slashdot.org which points towards a wonderful article on Slate. It ponders the question of would we be in space were it not for a number of quite improbable things that occurred. But what really caught my attention can also be applied to iTulip too. An historian, sometime in the future, will not doubt write a history of iTulip; as perhaps, a wonderful example of the same implausible circumstances that bring together such a wide ranging group of movers and shakers. Hardly any of us have ever met and are scattered right across the planet. Yet we surely comprise a modern example of the original Lunar Society http://www.lunarsociety.org.uk/3

Turning to the article in Slate:

Space Stasis

What the strange persistence of rockets can teach us about innovation.

By Neal Stephenson

http://www.slate.com/id/2283469/pagenum/all

Stephenson ends with this final paragraph, (though the rest is a great read, this really stands out):

A temptingly simple explanation is that we are decadent and tired. But none of the bright young up-and-coming economies seem to be interested in anything besides aping what the United States and the USSR did years ago. We may, in other words, need to look beyond strictly U.S.-centric explanations for such failures of imagination and initiative. It might simply be that there is something in the nature of modern global capitalism that is holding us back. Which might be a good thing, if it's an alternative to the crazy schemes of vicious dictators. Admittedly, there are many who feel a deep antipathy for expenditure of money and brainpower on space travel when, as they never tire of reminding us, there are so many problems to be solved on earth. So if space launch were the only area in which this phenomenon was observable, it would be of concern only to space enthusiasts. But the endless BP oil spill of 2010 highlighted any number of ways in which the phenomena of path dependency and lock-in have trapped our energy industry on a hilltop from which we can gaze longingly across not-so-deep valleys to much higher and sunnier peaks in the not-so-great distance. Those are places we need to go if we are not to end up as the Ottoman Empire of the 21^st century, and yet in spite of all of the lip service that is paid to innovation in such areas, it frequently seems as though we are trapped in a collective stasis. As described above, regulation is only one culprit; at least equal blame may be placed on engineering and management culture, insurance, Congress, and even accounting practices. But those who do concern themselves with the formal regulation of "technology" might wish to worry less about possible negative effects of innovation and more about the damage being done to our environment and our prosperity by the mid-20^th-century technologies that no sane and responsible person would propose today, but in which we remain trapped by mysterious and ineffable forces.

Or, to put it another way; we are stuck, anchored to thinking that is more than a century old and thus have trammelled our perception of the possible to the equivalent of an old mans long ago worn out shoe.

[c1ue]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

What if "they" were using radio frequencies and targeting us 200 years ago? What could they have heard? What would we have heard?

This is the time portion of the time and space issue I referred to earlier.

Again, for clarity, your answer sits upon an understanding of the physics that is embedded in thinking that is more than a Century old. But now I know I am being a little unfair, as a full answer is going to have to wait for the next few chapters.....

That may be, but unless said new drive can accelerate from 0 to FTL (faster than light) instantly, the near light speed issues still remain on the way: energy costs, dangerous objects.

After all, while scramjets work it still takes huge amounts of fuel to get them to scramjet speed.

Now this I will answer today. One of those wonderful misunderstandings about cellular communication is that the system "steers" the signal to you. It does not. The system in fact sends the signal to every antenna, but it is only the signal that has precisely your encoding address that your receiver, held in your hand, responds to. At that point, your receiver then responds to the system and at that point, the system can define where you are from the location of the antenna that received the response. As a glider pilot, we all learn very early on that we are not encouraged to turn on a cellular telephone when we are in the air as we then flood the entire region with our seeking response and perhaps a thousand cellular towers each receive the hand held's signal..........

The only reason you, as the owner of a cellular telephone, receive any message specific to your account is because your telephone has a very specific account number and the signal to you carries that account code. In fact, it is possible to listen in on any cellular phone call from any location if you have access to the specific code. But the powers that be do not want you to know that, for obvious reasons.

My friend, you are a smart and good man, but in this respect you are entirely wrong.

http://www.linkedin.com/companies/arraycomm

We are the world leader in multi-antenna signal processing (MAS). Our A‑MAS™ software is running in more than 300,000 base stations today, in 17 countries, with client device solutions on the way. We improve wireless subscriber experiences and radio network economics through gains in coverage, client data rates, and capacity — in W-CDMA, HSPA, GSM, WiMAX, PHS, and HC-SDMA systems. With an unmatched 15 years of commercial experience in the field, our team is uniquely qualified to help you integrate MAS into your wireless equipment and networks, offering you the highest performance gains with the least engineering effort and technical risk

Arraycomm's (and others) create the multi-antenna arrays by which the triangulation I mentioned previously occurs.

It isn't a microwave relay - i.e. 1 to 1 - but equally isn't a normal radio 'point source broadcast'/'anywhere in radius receive' setup.

Not to scare anyone - though the paranoid should be - all modern cell phones 'check in' regularly to their base stations. This is for many reasons:

1) so the phone number in question is more quickly accessible; knowing which basestation to route a call to is more efficient than searching all base stations

2) so energy usage on the handset side is more efficient; the signal strength can be more consistent between the arrayed antenna coverage and the knowledge of how many phones are in a given cell

3) so the call reception and setup handshakes are shorter, hence less power used in the process and more importantly more calls handled

The Arraycomm antennas - though I have never personally worked on them - are almost certainly of a similar functionality as the DLP projectors: hundreds and thousands of micromechanical parabolas/antennas for directing 'more' coherent radio signals.

[lektrode]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

The exchange underway on this thread is one of the reasons I love this place. Perhaps not directly macro-economic related, but enormously interesting...my appreciation to all above who have taken time to contribute!

ditto!
most facinating/enthralling/utterly-awe-inspiring collection of 'randomness' eye've ever had the pleasure of (staying up really late at nite and getting yelled at for being all-consumed... ;)

[Chris Coles]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

This is the time portion of the time and space issue I referred to earlier.



That may be, but unless said new drive can accelerate from 0 to FTL (faster than light) instantly, the near light speed issues still remain on the way: energy costs, dangerous objects.

After all, while scramjets work it still takes huge amounts of fuel to get them to scramjet speed.

Acceleration is entirely predicated by the gravitational environment. If you control gravity, you are disconnected from the external gravitational environment and are thus able to contemplate the potential for Zero Inertia. In which case, everything within the area under the control of gravity; and thus disconnected from the external gravitational environment; may possibly be accelerated without massive energy input. Or, to put it another way; mass is entirely a property of the gravitational environment. Zero gravity connection; Zero mass; Zero Inertia.

You only need to look at astronauts floating around in a space station, Where they are NOT in a true zero gravity environment; but a contrived one, (using centrifugal forces to balance out the gravitational attraction of the planet from low earth orbit); to be able to see the potential.

My friend, you are a smart and good man, but in this respect you are entirely wrong.

http://www.linkedin.com/companies/arraycomm

Arraycomm's (and others) create the multi-antenna arrays by which the triangulation I mentioned previously occurs.

It isn't a microwave relay - i.e. 1 to 1 - but equally isn't a normal radio 'point source broadcast'/'anywhere in radius receive' setup.

Not to scare anyone - though the paranoid should be - all modern cell phones 'check in' regularly to their base stations. This is for many reasons:

1) so the phone number in question is more quickly accessible; knowing which basestation to route a call to is more efficient than searching all base stations

2) so energy usage on the handset side is more efficient; the signal strength can be more consistent between the arrayed antenna coverage and the knowledge of how many phones are in a given cell

3) so the call reception and setup handshakes are shorter, hence less power used in the process and more importantly more calls handled

The Arraycomm antennas - though I have never personally worked on them - are almost certainly of a similar functionality as the DLP projectors: hundreds and thousands of micromechanical parabolas/antennas for directing 'more' coherent radio signals.

Wow! you have been led astray. For the record, I am the original inventor of all of your wireless camera telephones. (A VERY long story with no financial return). yes, if the system knows exactly where you are, it does possess the potential to direct the signal through a particular location. And certainly, yes, triangulation between several towers can be used as an imprecise location mechanism. BUT, still, if you made up say, a dozen different wireless phones all with exactly the same coding, they would all receive the same call and be able to converse.

If the system does not know where you are, (temporarily out of signal is a very good example), but someone tries to ring you, the signal goes to every tower.

[housingcrashsurvivor]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

I'm not sure if this is proof of life elsewhere but I've always had a feeling that I'm on the wrong planet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkLbSFWDwEQ

[c1ue]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

Acceleration is entirely predicated by the gravitational environment. If you control gravity, you are disconnected from the external gravitational environment and are thus able to contemplate the potential for Zero Inertia. In which case, everything within the area under the control of gravity; and thus disconnected from the external gravitational environment; may possibly be accelerated without massive energy input. Or, to put it another way; mass is entirely a property of the gravitational environment. Zero gravity connection; Zero mass; Zero Inertia.

You only need to look at astronauts floating around in a space station, Where they are NOT in a true zero gravity environment; but a contrived one, (using centrifugal forces to balance out the gravitational attraction of the planet from low earth orbit); to be able to see the potential.

I think you need to review your concepts. There is no such thing as Zero Mass. There is such a thing as Zero Weight.

But since you are apparently purporting to control gravity, then you can have zero weight.

Your astronaut analogy is entirely wrong. A 5000 ton mass might be able to float in orbit, but if it is moving then it still exerts a powerful and crushing effect on whatever it strikes even if it is moving at the same speed as a pencil, due to the mass differences.

Secondly acceleration is NOT a function of gravity. Gravity is merely one form of acceleration. In a theoretically zero gravity environment, you still have to accelerate in order to move your zero weight (not mass) from rest. A given amount of force will move different masses at different accelerations.

Be that as it may, even if I substitute weight for mass in your comment above, then nonetheless your FTL travel appears to ignore mass - which is in complete opposition to all theories of physics I am aware of.

Great if it works, but very dubious without proof.

Wow! you have been led astray. For the record, I am the original inventor of all of your wireless camera telephones. (A VERY long story with no financial return). yes, if the system knows exactly where you are, it does possess the potential to direct the signal through a particular location. And certainly, yes, triangulation between several towers can be used as an imprecise location mechanism. BUT, still, if you made up say, a dozen different wireless phones all with exactly the same coding, they would all receive the same call and be able to converse.

If the system does not know where you are, (temporarily out of signal is a very good example), but someone tries to ring you, the signal goes to every tower.

Really? So you are the inventor of the Arraycomm MAS system?

That's news to me.

As for a dozen wireless phones with the same coding - the system doesn't work in this case. A dozen phones with the same coding raises flag in the central control offices - the cellular operators have no desire to allow a group of flash modified cell phones to use the same account. The 'out of service area' signal is completely different - there is a handshake that goes on when you 'log' back into the system - and this is entirely different than having a dozen phones with the same handshake on the system simultaneously. This I've experienced personally as a developer.

What you describe might have been true 10 or 15 years ago; it is not now.

If you want to prove your credibility on this sphere, you have to do a better job than claiming invention of the concept. Cellular technology has advanced very rapidly since its first deployment in the '80s.

[sunskyfan]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

The maximum velocity of the speed of light happens to be the maximum speed at which information can move from one point in space to another by definition. You can look at it a couple of different ways but when I tell you moving anything faster than the "speed of light" is close to an absurdity. Now, if you happen to create a hole in space-time perhaps there is a way to cheat. That's a pretty tough nut to crack. Maybe someday someone might find a way to send information through a worm hole but not you and your SUV.

[c1ue]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

The maximum velocity of the speed of light happens to be the maximum speed at which information can move from one point in space to another by definition. You can look at it a couple of different ways but when I tell you moving anything faster than the "speed of light" is close to an absurdity. Now, if you happen to create a hole in space-time perhaps there is a way to cheat. That's a pretty tough nut to crack. Maybe someday someone might find a way to send information through a worm hole but not you and your SUV.

Theoretically a worm hole could be large, but of course in reality it would likely require some type of space/time fabric tearing such as via 2 perfectly opposed black holes.

But in general, if all the laws of physics as known today are to be broken, I'd like to see at least some empirical evidence.

Wow! you have been led astray. For the record, I am the original inventor of all of your wireless camera telephones. (A VERY long story with no financial return). yes, if the system knows exactly where you are, it does possess the potential to direct the signal through a particular location. And certainly, yes, triangulation between several towers can be used as an imprecise location mechanism. BUT, still, if you made up say, a dozen different wireless phones all with exactly the same coding, they would all receive the same call and be able to converse.

Some more independent verification of what I noted - as well as regulations taking into account thereof:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11...n_information/

So, you're a master criminal, or perhaps a cheating spouse, but either way you've covered your tracks and have a high court judge ready to confirm your alibi - you were eating dinner in a club when the deed occurred. Tickets paid in cash, and a hoodie to hide from the CCTV, your story is safe - except your mobile phone network knows exactly where you were, and when. But they're not going to tell anyone, are they?

Except they might. Network operators are bound by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), which requires them to store not only the details of every call you make and receive, but also where you were at the time. They keep this information for 12 months and make it available to the authorities on demand.

Of course, unless your spouse is very well placed they're unlikely to be able to call upon the RIPA to help, but if they suspect you in advance, your location might not be as secret as you think.

What does the network know?

When switched on, your mobile phone is logged onto the nearest cell site, which is recorded on servers at the network operator's data centre. The cell might not be the nearest physically, though in general it will be. What's important is the strength of signal from the handset's perspective.

In town the cell might cover an area as small as 100 yards across, but in the countryside they can easily cover ten miles. The deciding factor is generally the capacity of the cell, rather than range of the radio - so if you want to stay hidden keep away from places where people use their mobiles a lot, so cells will be dispersed.

In addition to the cell your phone is logged onto, the network operator can record your rough distance and the direction from it.

If you have signed up, or been signed up, to any kind of commercial tracking service, then external systems can connect to the network operator's computers and get that information.

According to the industry code of practice you should be getting random SMS messages reminding you that you could be tracked at any time, but those aren't always as frequent as they're supposed to be.

The networks make great play of the difference between where you are and where you were. They are perfectly happy to tell commercial services where you are, on demand, but they're not going to disclose your previous whereabouts without a RIPA request and accompanying purchase order.

To be sure your network isn't sharing your location data, change your privacy settings, which should protect you from the majority of commercial tracking solutions.

And what about the handset?

Note this story came off from another one where the authorities used 'invisible' sms messages sent to suspects in order to actively track them:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/02/04/silent_sms/

The 12 suspects were arrested on Christmas eve following a tip-off that they were planning some sort of terrorist attack, but now De Telegraaf reveals that in order to make those arrests the local security forces relied on a hitherto secret capability to track mobile phones through the use of silent SMS messages.

Using the still-secret capability apparently required special permission – provided to the Algemene Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdienst (Intelligence and Security Department) – and enabled the security forces to send out SMS messages to the suspects' phones, which helpfully reported back with their GPS coordinates and enabled swift arrest. But while that capability may worry some, it is really limited compared to what the security forces can really do.

Silent SMS messages are indeed part of the GSM standard, and they can be directed to the handset or SIM without alerting the user. Handset-targeted messages are used to alert the phone that an MMS message is waiting for it, among other things, while those addressed to the SIM often contain changes to preferred roaming partners, but could conceivably contain a request for location information – if the SIM had previously been configured to respond to such a request.

[Jam]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

For the sake of clarity, there is a very detailed proposal in existence that explains that the speed of light appears to be fixed simply because of the mechanism of the generation of the photon. Moreover, that the author has reason to believe, (based upon his explanation of what causes the speed of light to appear to be fixed), that it ought to be very possible to travel faster than the observed speed of light.

But no one will publicise the book, nor review it, so the matter lays in abeyance for the time being.

Cole, if "travel faster than the observed speed of light" is possible, why no tachyons have been observed?
Theory. At present, the (best) fundamental description of the physical world is provided by: the Standard Model that includes the theory of electroweak interactions and the theory of strong interactions (both quantum), plus general relativity (classical). While, arguably, not the most elegant description, it is (most) accurate nonetheless. Indeed, as far as I know, there is no experimental evidence contradicting these theories. Therefore, any (new) theory that attempts to compete with this description must be shown (by the proponent!) that it leads to the same experimental predictions. If the new theory predicts something that has never been observed, despite people looking, it will be dismissed off hand, and rightfully so, no matter how elegant and compelling it is otherwise.
Practice. Controlling gravity or moving faster than the speed of light would be hugely profitable to whoever comes up with it first--if you think markets are manipulated now, you ain't seen nothing; with the ability to control gravity, or to deliver one's buy/sell orders faster than the speed of light, one could wipe out competition in a nanosecond. Yet, unless such feats are already possible within the existing theoretical framework, they won't happen, and we are stuck with manipulating markets the old-fashioned way.
On a general note. Every year there emerge a handful of "theories" that "prove" general relativity, or special relativity, wrong. The reason, I think, is that some elements of these concepts have been popularized, and anyone who can read, or turn on a TV, now feels they understand them enough to find holes in them--you don't see many people trying to prove wrong the theory of elliptical functions, or dismantling spectral theorem. What is sad is that if the self-appointed iconoclasts spent a fraction of time and effort they spend on trying to push their "theories" on trying to understand others', they wouldn't waste so much of other people's time and energy.

[don]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

By chance, this turned up on Slashdot www.slashdot.org which points towards a wonderful article on Slate. It ponders the question of would we be in space were it not for a number of quite improbable things that occurred. But what really caught my attention can also be applied to iTulip too. An historian, sometime in the future, will not doubt write a history of iTulip; as perhaps, a wonderful example of the same implausible circumstances that bring together such a wide ranging group of movers and shakers. Hardly any of us have ever met and are scattered right across the planet. Yet we surely comprise a modern example of the original Lunar Society http://www.lunarsociety.org.uk/3

Quite high praise, indeed;

The original Lunar Society

In the late eighteenth century, the meetings of a few fertile minds changed an age.

The original Lunarmen gathered together for lively dinner conversations, the journey back from their Birmingham meeting place lit by the full moon. They were led by the larger-than-life physician Erasmus Darwin, a man of extraordinary intellectual insight with his own pioneering ideas on evolution. Others included the flamboyant entrepreneur Matthew Boulton, the brilliantly perceptive engineer James Watt whose inventions harnessed the power of steam, the radical polymath Joseph Priestley who, among his wide-ranging achievements discovered oxygen, and the innovative potter and social reformer Josiah Wedgwood. Their debates brought together philosophy, arts, science and commerce, and as well as debating and discovering, the 'Lunarticks' also built canals and factories, managed world-class businesses — and changed the face of Birmingham.

[lektrode]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

....For the record, I am the original inventor of all of your wireless camera telephones. ...

coool!

ok then, for $200, whois: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_Kahn

and for the bonus question, worth $500, what is: http://www.fullpower.com/

(its always AMAZING to me how these discussions bounce around, esp when/since i was uploading digipix with a celtel, on a boat, in the kaiwi channel.....

in 1996)

[Chris Coles]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

I think you need to review your concepts. There is no such thing as Zero Mass. There is such a thing as Zero Weight.

But since you are apparently purporting to control gravity, then you can have zero weight.

Your astronaut analogy is entirely wrong. A 5000 ton mass might be able to float in orbit, but if it is moving then it still exerts a powerful and crushing effect on whatever it strikes even if it is moving at the same speed as a pencil, due to the mass differences.

I stand corrected. You are correct with regard to mass; as we know it today. But to my certain knowledge, absolutely no one has any experimental data related to the conditions that mass will be under, if the object is completely disconnected from any external gravitational environment. What I did was speculate as to the resulting condition. I entirely accept that was a speculation and might very well be entirely wrong.

Secondly acceleration is NOT a function of gravity. Gravity is merely one form of acceleration. In a theoretically zero gravity environment, you still have to accelerate in order to move your zero weight (not mass) from rest. A given amount of force will move different masses at different accelerations.

Now we must agree to disagree. You see, if my own thinking is correct; then the ability to accelerate any mass is entirely related to the degree of gravitational attachments to that mass.

My theory is that gravity is an attachment force; and as such, the attachments introduce a direct force field attachment between, say a vehicle, and the mass of this planet. That if you disconnect the force field attachments, then you disconnect that which had been preventing the acceleration.

Be that as it may, even if I substitute weight for mass in your comment above, then nonetheless your FLT travel appears to ignore mass - which is in complete opposition to all theories of physics I am aware of.

Great if it works, but very dubious without proof.

All I have done is write a book about gravity. A large part of the book is dedicated to proposed experiments to set about such proof. What has become remarkable is the almost complete refusal to debate the proposed experiments, let along the wider debate in the book. I do realise that what I have proposed drives a coach and horses over existing theories and does set out a complete destruction of both Big Bang theory and Ideal Gas Law. But the fact is; there is another detailed theory that does just that. But that is not my problem; I just wrote the book.

Really? So you are the inventor of the Arraycomm MAS system?

That's news to me.

As for a dozen wireless phones with the same coding - the system doesn't work in this case. A dozen phones with the same coding raises flag in the central control offices - the cellular operators have no desire to allow a group of flash modified cell phones to use the same account. The 'out of service area' signal is completely different - there is a handshake that goes on when you 'log' back into the system - and this is entirely different than having a dozen phones with the same handshake on the system simultaneously. This I've experienced personally as a developer.

What you describe might have been true 10 or 15 years ago; it is not now.

If you want to prove your credibility on this sphere, you have to do a better job than claiming invention of the concept. Cellular technology has advanced very rapidly since its first deployment in the '80s.

The starting point for this debate was the idea that the transmission in a wireless transmitter signal at the transmitting tower transmits effectively the same transmission signal to every tower. In the sense of what one might describe as an old fashioned system, for example with emergency services, that is absolutely so. Every tower on the system transmitting the signal from a particular station has exactly the same signal transmitted from every aerial.

What modern electronics has enabled, is the very high speed monitoring and computing of the return signal received back from the hand held; and from that monitoring, a reliable method of control over the back haul network to enable the most efficient use of the bandwidth of the system.

But if your hand held is turned off, the system does not know where you are and the transmission goes out to every tower until it "finds" the user.

yes, there are many regulations and laws in place to prevent anyone from breaking into such systems. They are after all the most important communication system.

I was not, (nor did I intend), to give the idea that breaking into such systems should be either condoned or encouraged. I was simply making the point that the signal is available beyond the direct connection between the local tower directly connected to the users hand held.

I did not claim to be any form of inventor of any form of aerial system. My US patents are for any portable transmitter that combines a camera and any navigation system such as GPS where the camera takes an electronic image, combines that image with navigational information and transmits that information to a base station where the information may be displayed, as the image, as well as the location on a map.. These are not simply for the device alone, but the full system, hand held, operating system, software, right to transmit and all the downstream functions. 5,712,679; 6,181,373; 6,469,735.

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...&RS=PN/5712679

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...&RS=PN/6181373

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-P...&RS=PN/6469735

Any directionality of an aerial is entirely to suite local conditions; for example where a tower has on the one side a freeway and on the other an empty hillside blocking the signal from longer distances. In such cases, the aerial is designed to provide a stronger signal towards the most users.

[charliebrown]

Re: 1,200 and Counting

Acceleration is entirely predicated by the gravitational environment. If you control gravity, you are disconnected from the external gravitational environment and are thus able to contemplate the potential for Zero Inertia. In which case, everything within the area under the control of gravity; and thus disconnected from the external gravitational environment; may possibly be accelerated without massive energy input. Or, to put it another way; mass is entirely a property of the gravitational environment. Zero gravity connection; Zero mass; Zero Inertia.

Are you telling me in inter-galactic space where g is very small f=ma is no longer valid?