Electric companies have a huge investment in their current physical plant.
Any plant built in the last 10 years won't be paid off for another 10 to 20 years.
And your point is?
Business models go south all the time, when innovations occur. It's the nature of things. If the electric companies didn't see it coming, plan for it, and start investing in the newer technologies, that's their problem. They have no intrinsic right to make it everybody else's problem.
That's what the music industry did: fail to look forward and plan. And we are still suffering the consequences of the legislative MESS they created in the process of trying to wiggle out of the fact that they woke up one morning and their business models were outmoded.
And they fight attempts to change this because it's cheaper to stand pat. Which was the point you said wasn't true. They are dumping the costs of their power production on the environment and it's time they (& we) started paying for it.
And what costs are those, which are not already regulated, at least in the U.S. and most "Western" countries?
They (& we) have been paying for it, for a long time. Should they pay a bit more for the environmental damage they do? Possibly. But they already spend a fortune on smokestack scrubbers, land reclamation, etc. Which cost is passed on to you, the consumer.
The United States is among the cleanest and greenest industrialized countries on Earth, and has been for some time.
Sadly, it's not illegal for municipalities to grant a monopoly to a communications provider, which is how the country got divided up. It's not something they were trying to do.
Of course it was.
Otherwise, they'd be COMPETING. That's what competitive companies do.
But in reality, the only places they compete even a little, is in the giant metropolitan areas. And even then, what do you want to bet they have (illegal) price agreements?
The evidence is all around you: the current state of broadband across most of the U.S.
Maybe I've developed an over-sensitivity. But I've been mass-sockpuppet-modded before, and it's caused me a great deal of inconvenience. When you've had excellent karma for years it's pretty harsh to wake up one morning and find out that suddenly your karma is negative. And it can take weeks to build it back up again.
each company simply deciding not to enter their competitors market is not illegal, no anti-trust law requires a company to always compete, it simply stops companies from agreeing not to compete.
Are you implying that you honestly believe there is no agreement? Again, that's what Apple and those other companies said, too. Turned out otherwise.
If you can show a component of mutual, explicit agreement between the parties here, then anti-trust comes into play
Of course. It has to be shown. But you seem to be presuming that such does not exist, while from my point of view, that's a ludicrous point of view. Of course they have agreements. But you are correct that it has to be shown.
Sadly, the shills seem to have modded you down. Sorry, I don't have mod points myself, but +1 insightful. Keep it up.
Amazing. I've often been surprised here on Slashdot how a simple statement of fact can get someone modded "troll". There's a lot more politics on this board than people usually admit.
What's really sad, though, is that people with mod points know that's not proper use of a "troll" mod. They're being dishonest.
Well, my first language on a "serious" computer was Fortran, and not a "modern" version. And I absolutely hated the "this has to go in this column" BS, which may be why I don't care for the whitespace in Python. Used to it or not, I just don't care for it.
Same with the Haml framework in Ruby, which also uses significant whitespace. I used it enough to become familiar with it. Didn't care for it at all.
I type this as someone who lost a good ISP when it was bought out by Time Warner, and I've seen too many Comcast issues from people I game with to look forward to a merger.
The funny thing, though, is it is that passage that OP seems to be mostly about, when it is the earlier part that should most alarm everybody: they aren't competing.
And they aren't competing (this is just simple truth), because they have most of the country "divided up" between them: "You have this territory, and we have this territory."
But that's ILLEGAL. Dividing up the country between companies into non-competing regions is in violation of a Federal antitrust law that was passed clear back in 1926. It's just as bad in its own way as the "no compete for employees" agreement that Apple and other tech companies had. But they've practically bragged about it to the FCC!
And yet the FCC is looking entirely the other way. This is Obama's crony-capital government for you. I mean sure, Bush did it too, to a lesser extent. But this merger would never have been even CONSIDERED during the Bush years.
but the syntax, third party tools, third party libraries, IDEs, etc. all contribute to the satisfaction of programming in that language.
And all of those same reasons are why I am DIS-satisfied with Java. I did some programming in Java, but it feels too restrictive to me. But I grant you: those restrictions are what enable it to run relatively fast.
I think Java is a decent language for teaching object-orientated programming techniques. And it forces you to remain in-type, etc. But I've never much cared to work in restrictive environments and I feel that I can program like an adult without Java looking over my shoulder and forcing me to do things its way.
I like that the entire "Hello World" program can be done in 15 characters. I like that I don't have to "include" libraries that I use damned near every day. Etc.
But it's all personal preference. The point was that you should do what makes you happy. It's not the same for everybody.
Agreed. Some sources are saying Python pays the most today, others say C++, others say Ruby.
But you have to factor in what you enjoy also. If I had a choice of a $110,000 job writing Python and a $100,000 job writing Ruby, I'd take the Ruby job, because I don't much care for Python, but I really enjoy Ruby.
It's all a matter of taste. I've only dabbled in Python a little but that's because I don't care for it; a little was plenty for me. And even less so because I also don't care for that "significant whitespace" stuff. In my experience it can be hell when debugging someone else's code: "Did she mean to put this HERE? Or 4 columns to the left?"
But what TFA says about "failed competition" is false. The regulatory setup fostered oligopoly, not market competition. Today there is scarcely any competition at all... thus the 4 or 5 big companies.
Although it is fair to say that population density (or lack of it) does add a bit to costs, the fact is that what governments called "competition" in the market really wasn't. Instead it was crony capitalism and oligopoly.
In those countries where the giant companies are required to share backbone without discrimination, which fosters actual competition, the service is better and the rates are lower.
In the U.S., Title II and Net Neutrality are definitely the goal The People should aim for.
My response above is assuming they know your name, of course. Many ISPs just forward the letters to the account holder based on allegations regarding the IP.
If they don't know your name, only contact them via an attorney. No other way. You don't want to give them your name.
To me, that is exactly why anything short of a court order, signed by a judge, should be ignored, no response at all. Unless you want to sucker punch them by immediately filing your own legal papers of course:-)
A good response would be just a letter stating ONLY that you will not pay their "settlement". And that is ALL. No explanations, no reasons, nothing else except that if they want to pursue it any futher, contact attorney X.
They don't want to sue you. That was economical to do when they got away (illegally) with suing thousands of people at a time, but judges got wise to that and halted the practice.
Judges are now insisting on individual suits against named parties. Much, much harder and more expensive than the 1000-person suits of old. AND... there is also the fact that judges have FINALLY gotten it through their heads (and ruled) that an IP address is not a person. Or even necessarily a household.
So I'd just say "I'm not going to pay this 'settlement'. Period. If you wish to discuss this further, contact my attorney Mr...."
I did notice on reading further about the Pros that the # of projected recharge cycles was far lower.
By "better" I meant that they have higher capacity. But I did not know of this limitation at the time.
And after having looked at the prices, my conclusion is that the Eneloop Pro is NOT a very good deal. They cost 50%-100% more, for 10%-15% higher capacity and shorter life. I suppose they might be worthwhile if your application absolutely had to have the highest capacity.
In any case, I am happy with my standard Eneloops. Several years now and they are going strong.
there isn't too much room for expansion before either the AI faces brownouts and a lack of hardware upgrades or we start getting squeezed to make room.
Nukes solve many problems.
Chimpanzees or even baboons (intentionally or not) could put a smarter human in a cage, and no matter how much smarter that human is, he or she is still in a cage. Intelligence by itself is not omnipotent; it requires resources to conquer others. If pulling the plug shuts it off, then an "intelligent" human would put a breaker box in the next room before turning it on. Or call the power company and have them shut off the whole neighborhood.
Superintelligence conceivably could conquer or destroy the human race, but only if humans act stupidly.
Probability doesn't help this issue. A number of grains is either a heap, not a heap, or undefined.
This is nonsense masquerading as philosophy.
Here, you insist on specific definitions, but before you asserted that there is no such specific definition.
But if the definition is vague, then what one person calls a heap to another person is not a heap. (Your example: 1000 grains of rice is actually not very much rice, and *I* would not agree it was a heap.)
Vagueness and then moving the goalposts is not profundity. I was being silly myself earlier in this thread but at least I wasn't pretending it was something else.
... but really it'll only tell you something about how the word 'heap' is used in everyday speech, it doesn't tell you anything ontologically significant about the situation.
That's because there IS nothing ontologically significant about the situation.
I think the most abundant thing would have to be idiocy. But it's not really a material substance, so you can't quite put your hands on it... no matter how much you might want to.
Cash as it turns out is much cheaper especially when cartel monopolies kick in, adding fees, charges, interests and just out and out greed to the cost of doing business. Give me cash any day.
The moment we become a "cashless society" is the moment you can kiss Freedom's sweet ass goodbye.
Not only is a cashless society more difficult than most people think, it's about the last thing in the world I'd identify as a worthy goal.
I bought a "kit" of Eneloops a few years ago with a charger and 10 AAs, and it's still going strong. It has very easily paid for itself, probably several times over.
The Eneloop Pros are even better, they have like a 10%-15% higher capacity. I don't know if that's worth the price.
There are plenty of stories on Slashdot and various news sites about how, once you pass 38, one can have trouble getting an IT job, whether it's that managers think you're too old for IT is up for debate.
I know there are many stories. There is a definite bias in hiring practices toward young workers in the programming and IT fields (which are NOT the same fields). But whether that is because of managers' attitudes is not all that debatable. It is supported by every study I have seen of the subject.
There is a definite bias in hiring practices toward young workers in the programming and IT fields (which are NOT the same fields). And yet study after study have shown older programmers to be more productive. So it isn't just a matter of pay, either. In a competitive market the more experienced and productive workers tend to get paid more.
You can drop the radiator with fan design and have are quite large ribbed aluminum tank instead, hot water gets in at top and you get room temp water out from the bottom
Sure. But I haven't seen many designed that way.
If you ran the hoses right it probably wouldn't even need a pump.
Seasonic sells fanless power supplies up to 850 watts. That's enough for GeForce Titan in SLI.
It's still in the case, it still generates heat. Just as with the fanless GPU, that heat still has to be expelled from the case somehow. That requires either fans or water cooling, and most water cooling requires fans.
I don't know if you're reading the same DMCA I'm reading, but 17 USC 512(i)(1)(A) applies the safe harbor only to service providers with "a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers".
I was quoting EFF. Strange that they might have gotten it wrong, but it may be that, as others suggested, the circumstances here aren't appropriate for that.
Slashdot Mirror
Electric companies have a huge investment in their current physical plant. Any plant built in the last 10 years won't be paid off for another 10 to 20 years.
And your point is?
Business models go south all the time, when innovations occur. It's the nature of things. If the electric companies didn't see it coming, plan for it, and start investing in the newer technologies, that's their problem. They have no intrinsic right to make it everybody else's problem.
That's what the music industry did: fail to look forward and plan. And we are still suffering the consequences of the legislative MESS they created in the process of trying to wiggle out of the fact that they woke up one morning and their business models were outmoded.
And they fight attempts to change this because it's cheaper to stand pat. Which was the point you said wasn't true. They are dumping the costs of their power production on the environment and it's time they (& we) started paying for it.
And what costs are those, which are not already regulated, at least in the U.S. and most "Western" countries?
They (& we) have been paying for it, for a long time. Should they pay a bit more for the environmental damage they do? Possibly. But they already spend a fortune on smokestack scrubbers, land reclamation, etc. Which cost is passed on to you, the consumer.
The United States is among the cleanest and greenest industrialized countries on Earth, and has been for some time.
Sadly, it's not illegal for municipalities to grant a monopoly to a communications provider, which is how the country got divided up. It's not something they were trying to do.
Of course it was.
Otherwise, they'd be COMPETING. That's what competitive companies do.
But in reality, the only places they compete even a little, is in the giant metropolitan areas. And even then, what do you want to bet they have (illegal) price agreements?
The evidence is all around you: the current state of broadband across most of the U.S.
Yeah... hard to complain.
Maybe I've developed an over-sensitivity. But I've been mass-sockpuppet-modded before, and it's caused me a great deal of inconvenience. When you've had excellent karma for years it's pretty harsh to wake up one morning and find out that suddenly your karma is negative. And it can take weeks to build it back up again.
each company simply deciding not to enter their competitors market is not illegal, no anti-trust law requires a company to always compete, it simply stops companies from agreeing not to compete.
Are you implying that you honestly believe there is no agreement? Again, that's what Apple and those other companies said, too. Turned out otherwise.
If you can show a component of mutual, explicit agreement between the parties here, then anti-trust comes into play
Of course. It has to be shown. But you seem to be presuming that such does not exist, while from my point of view, that's a ludicrous point of view. Of course they have agreements. But you are correct that it has to be shown.
Sadly, the shills seem to have modded you down. Sorry, I don't have mod points myself, but +1 insightful. Keep it up.
Amazing. I've often been surprised here on Slashdot how a simple statement of fact can get someone modded "troll". There's a lot more politics on this board than people usually admit.
What's really sad, though, is that people with mod points know that's not proper use of a "troll" mod. They're being dishonest.
Well, my first language on a "serious" computer was Fortran, and not a "modern" version. And I absolutely hated the "this has to go in this column" BS, which may be why I don't care for the whitespace in Python. Used to it or not, I just don't care for it.
Same with the Haml framework in Ruby, which also uses significant whitespace. I used it enough to become familiar with it. Didn't care for it at all.
I type this as someone who lost a good ISP when it was bought out by Time Warner, and I've seen too many Comcast issues from people I game with to look forward to a merger.
The funny thing, though, is it is that passage that OP seems to be mostly about, when it is the earlier part that should most alarm everybody: they aren't competing.
And they aren't competing (this is just simple truth), because they have most of the country "divided up" between them: "You have this territory, and we have this territory."
But that's ILLEGAL. Dividing up the country between companies into non-competing regions is in violation of a Federal antitrust law that was passed clear back in 1926. It's just as bad in its own way as the "no compete for employees" agreement that Apple and other tech companies had. But they've practically bragged about it to the FCC!
And yet the FCC is looking entirely the other way. This is Obama's crony-capital government for you. I mean sure, Bush did it too, to a lesser extent. But this merger would never have been even CONSIDERED during the Bush years.
but the syntax, third party tools, third party libraries, IDEs, etc. all contribute to the satisfaction of programming in that language.
And all of those same reasons are why I am DIS-satisfied with Java. I did some programming in Java, but it feels too restrictive to me. But I grant you: those restrictions are what enable it to run relatively fast.
I think Java is a decent language for teaching object-orientated programming techniques. And it forces you to remain in-type, etc. But I've never much cared to work in restrictive environments and I feel that I can program like an adult without Java looking over my shoulder and forcing me to do things its way.
I like that the entire "Hello World" program can be done in 15 characters. I like that I don't have to "include" libraries that I use damned near every day. Etc.
But it's all personal preference. The point was that you should do what makes you happy. It's not the same for everybody.
Agreed. Some sources are saying Python pays the most today, others say C++, others say Ruby.
But you have to factor in what you enjoy also. If I had a choice of a $110,000 job writing Python and a $100,000 job writing Ruby, I'd take the Ruby job, because I don't much care for Python, but I really enjoy Ruby.
It's all a matter of taste. I've only dabbled in Python a little but that's because I don't care for it; a little was plenty for me. And even less so because I also don't care for that "significant whitespace" stuff. In my experience it can be hell when debugging someone else's code: "Did she mean to put this HERE? Or 4 columns to the left?"
In Canada there are 5 "main" companies.
And similarly in the U.S.
But what TFA says about "failed competition" is false. The regulatory setup fostered oligopoly, not market competition. Today there is scarcely any competition at all... thus the 4 or 5 big companies.
Although it is fair to say that population density (or lack of it) does add a bit to costs, the fact is that what governments called "competition" in the market really wasn't. Instead it was crony capitalism and oligopoly.
In those countries where the giant companies are required to share backbone without discrimination, which fosters actual competition, the service is better and the rates are lower.
In the U.S., Title II and Net Neutrality are definitely the goal The People should aim for.
My response above is assuming they know your name, of course. Many ISPs just forward the letters to the account holder based on allegations regarding the IP.
If they don't know your name, only contact them via an attorney. No other way. You don't want to give them your name.
To me, that is exactly why anything short of a court order, signed by a judge, should be ignored, no response at all. Unless you want to sucker punch them by immediately filing your own legal papers of course :-)
A good response would be just a letter stating ONLY that you will not pay their "settlement". And that is ALL. No explanations, no reasons, nothing else except that if they want to pursue it any futher, contact attorney X.
..."
They don't want to sue you. That was economical to do when they got away (illegally) with suing thousands of people at a time, but judges got wise to that and halted the practice.
Judges are now insisting on individual suits against named parties. Much, much harder and more expensive than the 1000-person suits of old. AND... there is also the fact that judges have FINALLY gotten it through their heads (and ruled) that an IP address is not a person. Or even necessarily a household.
So I'd just say "I'm not going to pay this 'settlement'. Period. If you wish to discuss this further, contact my attorney Mr.
100 to 1 you'll never hear anything again.
I did notice on reading further about the Pros that the # of projected recharge cycles was far lower.
By "better" I meant that they have higher capacity. But I did not know of this limitation at the time.
And after having looked at the prices, my conclusion is that the Eneloop Pro is NOT a very good deal. They cost 50%-100% more, for 10%-15% higher capacity and shorter life. I suppose they might be worthwhile if your application absolutely had to have the highest capacity.
In any case, I am happy with my standard Eneloops. Several years now and they are going strong.
there isn't too much room for expansion before either the AI faces brownouts and a lack of hardware upgrades or we start getting squeezed to make room.
Nukes solve many problems.
Chimpanzees or even baboons (intentionally or not) could put a smarter human in a cage, and no matter how much smarter that human is, he or she is still in a cage. Intelligence by itself is not omnipotent; it requires resources to conquer others. If pulling the plug shuts it off, then an "intelligent" human would put a breaker box in the next room before turning it on. Or call the power company and have them shut off the whole neighborhood.
Superintelligence conceivably could conquer or destroy the human race, but only if humans act stupidly.
Probability doesn't help this issue. A number of grains is either a heap, not a heap, or undefined.
This is nonsense masquerading as philosophy.
Here, you insist on specific definitions, but before you asserted that there is no such specific definition.
But if the definition is vague, then what one person calls a heap to another person is not a heap. (Your example: 1000 grains of rice is actually not very much rice, and *I* would not agree it was a heap.)
Vagueness and then moving the goalposts is not profundity. I was being silly myself earlier in this thread but at least I wasn't pretending it was something else.
... but really it'll only tell you something about how the word 'heap' is used in everyday speech, it doesn't tell you anything ontologically significant about the situation.
That's because there IS nothing ontologically significant about the situation.
No, it was one swell "Floop!"... the sound that was made when they all popped into existence.
That is, if you could call it a sound. You know: "If Helen Keller fell over in the woods, would she make any noise?" and all that.
Well, at least that's actually material.
I think the most abundant thing would have to be idiocy. But it's not really a material substance, so you can't quite put your hands on it... no matter how much you might want to.
Cash as it turns out is much cheaper especially when cartel monopolies kick in, adding fees, charges, interests and just out and out greed to the cost of doing business. Give me cash any day.
The moment we become a "cashless society" is the moment you can kiss Freedom's sweet ass goodbye.
Not only is a cashless society more difficult than most people think, it's about the last thing in the world I'd identify as a worthy goal.
I bought a "kit" of Eneloops a few years ago with a charger and 10 AAs, and it's still going strong. It has very easily paid for itself, probably several times over.
The Eneloop Pros are even better, they have like a 10%-15% higher capacity. I don't know if that's worth the price.
I want to find some AAAs now.
I stand corrected then. I must have been looking at the 780s.
There are plenty of stories on Slashdot and various news sites about how, once you pass 38, one can have trouble getting an IT job, whether it's that managers think you're too old for IT is up for debate.
I know there are many stories. There is a definite bias in hiring practices toward young workers in the programming and IT fields (which are NOT the same fields). But whether that is because of managers' attitudes is not all that debatable. It is supported by every study I have seen of the subject.
There is a definite bias in hiring practices toward young workers in the programming and IT fields (which are NOT the same fields). And yet study after study have shown older programmers to be more productive. So it isn't just a matter of pay, either. In a competitive market the more experienced and productive workers tend to get paid more.
You can drop the radiator with fan design and have are quite large ribbed aluminum tank instead, hot water gets in at top and you get room temp water out from the bottom
Sure. But I haven't seen many designed that way.
If you ran the hoses right it probably wouldn't even need a pump.
Seasonic sells fanless power supplies up to 850 watts. That's enough for GeForce Titan in SLI.
It's still in the case, it still generates heat. Just as with the fanless GPU, that heat still has to be expelled from the case somehow. That requires either fans or water cooling, and most water cooling requires fans.
I don't know if you're reading the same DMCA I'm reading, but 17 USC 512(i)(1)(A) applies the safe harbor only to service providers with "a policy that provides for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscribers and account holders of the service provider's system or network who are repeat infringers".
I was quoting EFF. Strange that they might have gotten it wrong, but it may be that, as others suggested, the circumstances here aren't appropriate for that.