This is absolutely correct. I used to own a small convenience store and gas station - independently operated - I could buy my fuel from whatever supplier would deliver to me at the best price. The suppliers were also for the most part independently operated - some would buy fuel from various depots, others were married to specific suppliers, however, they purchased the fuel in large quantities (typically 100,000 L increments) and stored the fuel in underground tanks at their distribution facility.
When I would call to order 10,000L of fuel each week, they would fill the 2 compartments in the truck to 80% of their capacity (2 x 6000L compartments filled to 80% = 9600 L) and head out on the highway to my location. After an hour in the sun on a hot day driving to my location, the usual delivery quantity that the register on the back of the delivery truck would read after emptying the 2 compartments was around 9750L - I had to pay for 9750L. The same truck on a cold day in November would often deliver me only 9500L - even though at the distribution terminal they had filled the truck to their set 80% - 9600L.
My tanks were underground and typically a thermometer dip in the fuel showed a temperature around 58F. So when I bought fuel in the summer - I was often cheated of almost 150L of fuel - I would pay for 9750L to put in my tank, and it would cool down and by the time I pumped it for the customers - I only had 9600L available to pump out. My mark-up was 3c/L - so on 10,000 L approx $300. The "missing" 150L cost me about $150. My profit margin was cut in half in the summer. I figure I somewhat made up for it in the colder months - but it would have been nice if the delivery trucks had been temperature compensating.
I'm out of that business now - $300 a week profit from selling gas just doesn't pay the bills. I'm surprised any small independent gas stations are still in operation.
The iMac's would be competitive if they would put the bigger screen on a less spec'd out model - A "Dell Desktop" can be had with a 20" LCD, Core2Duo, 500 Gig's of space, and 2GB RAM for under $1000... the 20" iMac is minimum $1700 over at the local BestBuy.
MacBooks are even further down the competitive price chain - to get a screen big enough to see what you are typing you need a MacBook Pro - why can't they sell the "specs of a MacBook" in a MacBook pro case with the bigger screen? I can get a MacBook for $1200 but it has an awful 13" screen - and the cheapest MacBook Pro (still only a 15.4" screen) is a minimum of $1999. My HP laptop (dv9300) with a 17" screen, Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 240GB Hard drive was only $1499 (and it's running Ubuntu 7.04) - that puts the Mac prices back in line with how expensive they really are. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be. I need a 17" screen laptop and a 20" screen on my desktop. Apple can't seem to do that for me without taking a loan against my house for some reason. Maybe someone in Apple land in the product development and marketing group reads/. - if so - hear my pleas! I WILL buy a Mac - if you make ones with bigger screens affordable!
I run a small business and this is exactly how the credit card transactions take place. A customer comes in to the store and purchases something and wishes to use their credit card - the card is swiped through a terminal that uses a dial-up modem connection back to the bank's clearing house - a conversation takes place between the terminal and the remote server (at a mighty 9600bps) - and either a "approved" or "declined" is returned and a *PAPER* receipt (2 part) is thermally printed. The customer gets one copy of that and one copy of the register receipt. I keep one copy of the register receipt for proof of what they purchased, along with the signed copy of their purchase. The credit card companies (Visa/MC/Am Ex) all require I keep those paper records for 1 year in case of charge backs, etc. Each evening when the business closes the paper receipts are collected and put in a manilla envelope marked with the day's date and the envelope is placed in a locked filing cabinet in the back office. At the beginning of each month, credit card purchase receipts more than 1 year past are burned in the incinerator - the filing cabinet never has more than 12 past months data, and none if it is stored in electronic format anywhere on premise. The point of sale software's database has a record of all transactions ever taken place as far as inventory, amount paid, taxes collected - but it has nothing that can tie the purchase to a customer or that customer's financial information. I don't see why any size business of any type couldn't follow that method of doing business.
There are LED nightlights that use something on the order of 5 mW of power - they are wonderful things for rooms that contain the "facilities" - you don't have to blind yourself in the middle of the night either. Frankly when I do have to turn the lights on in the middle of the night for some reason (e.g. wife says "what waa that noise?!?!??"), I am appreciative of the "slow glow" of CFL's - I don't get insta-retinal-explosion!
Well then how about a retinal scanner built into the back of the device? That should cut down on its usefulness to a thief - and there certainly aren't retinal patterns "left" on the device like there are fingerprints.
No - you're not alone. I much prefer the light from CFL's to the light of incandescent bulbs. I had been suffering the last 2 years with the horrible orange yellow light of the incandescent bulbs in my chandaleir fixtures, because there were no candelabra base CFL's. Last week my local Canadian Tire started carrying GE candelabra base bulbs. It didn't take me 2 minutes to make the decision to buy the 18 of them I needed to replace the 18 remaining incandescent bulbs in my house - even at $6 *per bulb* (yes, they are a new product so they are pricey - I normally buy the 6 pack of Noma 13W CFL's on sale for $5.99 - $1 per CFL, and they are relatively instant on, a nice soft white colour, no flicker, and their warm-up is short enough that within 15-30 seconds the bulb is to full brightness). That's completed my transition for every bulb in my house except for the one in my refrigerator. I will be looking for an LED lamp for in there - as the cold is somewhat prohibitive to use of CFL's.
If anyone can't wait the 15 seconds for a bulb to go to full brightness, they are in too much of a hurry. If they can't find one with the colour they like, keep looking, I found a brand that was both inexpensive and pleasing to myself, my wife, and the rest of our family. I haven't had to replace one in 2 years since I moved into this house and replaced all the legacy bulbs. I estimate with the 20-25 bulbs, 6-8 of which are on significant length of time each day, that I've saved roughly $200 each year in electricity.
Perhaps the companies that make these bulbs should work on emphasizing return and recycling type programs through local retailers. If I can take my beer and wine bottles back to the Beer Store and get $0.10 - $0.25 each - why not be able to take my "dead" CFL's back to WalMart or Canadian Tire and get $0.20 or so back - they send them back to the MFG, the mercury is reclaimed and reused (that's good for the environment), the ballast is removed from the base and a fresh one is put in, and the bulbs can then be sold as "remanufactured" at a discount (maybe instead of $1/bulb, only $0.75/bulb) - that plus my $0.20 for my return of the bulb to recycling, would bring the indiviual bulb costs down to around $0.50 -- I've never bought a decent incandescent bulb for any cheaper than that - certainly not one that used 1/6 the electricity and lasted 6 times longer. Even the heavy duty "rural incandescent" bulbs that are supposed to give 5000 hours burn dimmer, with an orange tint, and cost upwards of $1.50/bulb. No bargain there.
Shop around - find CFL's that appease your eyes and your wallet - replace every bulb you can - bask in your electricity savings - and hold on to the old CFL's (they really don't die all that often - you won't be throwing many out in the ~5 years most people stay in a house) - and hopefully once everywhere has legislated energy efficient bulbs in - the recycling infrastructure for them will begin to appear.
Actually various states and provinces have regulations regarding collector cars, classic cars, and other special one-off items that allow you to completely bypass any and all current emission and safety requirements. If you take your Model A for a Sunday drive, it doesn't have to be equipped with safety belts, automatic windshield wipers, or even a functional front bumper - and obviously it doesn't have to meet any emissions requirements. Chances are good in most areas, at least in North America, where the buyer for this vehicle is somewhat likely to be (after all they are buing it from a San Francisco Bay Area dealership from a seller in Livermore) - a special custom car such as this, being a piece of TV memorabilia, custom built and made, and over 20 years old, you could apply and make the case for a classic or custom car status, and be allowed to drive it on the highway. Perhaps under certain restrictions, but, still wouldn't have to be "trailered only".
This isn't necessarily true - I think 2/3 of my courses throughout university were marked with about 75% to 90% of the grade derived from performance on one or two midterms and a comprehensive final exam. That at a northeastern US "state university" for a degree in Computer Engineering. Of the other 1/3 of my courses that were not entirely graded through the midterm and final, the vast majority were programming courses that required projects of various sorts, and were typically done in groups, with each group having a very specific unique individual project to work on that couldn't easily be copied or plagiarized from anyone in the class or anyone previously. I had 2 courses in all of my program that required writing an actual "paper" - one was a religious studies course - and much of my content did come from the Internet - very little cut and paste however. The other course was a philosophy class that required each student to do a paper tying together theories from 4 to 6 different philosophers, with each and every student in the class having a different combination of philosophers and their writings that they were to work from - again - something almost impossible to find "online content for".
I don't think there was anything wrong with the education I received, and I personally felt cheating without being caught would have been if not next to impossible, certainly not worth the risk vs. reward. It was just easier to do my own work. If more professors weren't lazy and were willing to do things in the manner I was exposed to, I think we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
That line of thought I buy. In Canada, we pay a tax on blank CD's - the idea being some of that $ goes back to content producers - that seems fair to me. It's not a large tax obviously, when I can buy a 100 pack of blank CD-R's for $19.95 - so even if I'm not using them for audio content the tax isn't harmfully large - and it's probably representative of the "maybe 40%" of blank CD-R's that are used for unfunded copying of entertainment content that should have been paid for. I see no problem with a tax on TV's based on their size perhaps? A tax placed on ISP's which could be passed through to end users based on how much "torrent/p2p traffic they carry" (and I know someone will complain saying "I only use get.torrents of Linux ISO images", because I am one of those people, but I don't think I'd complain about that tax anyway - knowing maybe 50% or more of the torrents out there are again unfunded copying of entertainment), perhaps a tax on all audio playing devices, and all devices capable of reproducing video output as well. If the content becomes extremely inexpensive or next to free - shifting the cost to the devices to help fund the artists seems fair. Shifting the cost to society at large - to some extent - is also permissible - to the extent that yes, the arts do help society to some extent. But remember, from the beginning of recorded history up until 110 years ago, there were no motion pictures, and society flourished just the same, authors have rarely received any state funding, and fine artists were often hired to produce works that were then "free for the masses for their consumption" (e.g. Ceiling of Sistine Chapel), and musical composers and performers were generally only financially compensated through live performances. I don't really know anyone who buys or trades recordings of symphony orchestras, going to the event is the event you pay for, and the symphony orchestras still flourish.
I guess my thought on all this is - the arts will survive without direct compensation for content from the end users through their respective **AA's - the business models have to change - the financial sources have to change - direct payments from end users can be a portion but can't always be depended on - some taxes can and should be a portion of this - new business models should be a portion of this - but shifting the burden to the general public probably isn't necessarily the only answer - the governments waste too much of the tax dollars collected in sales taxes and income taxes in administration (perhaps as much if not more than the **AA's run away with) - so - only time will show us what the new world of arts and media will be. In the mean time, I'm going for a walk outside.
I'm calling you out on this AC - you're not American - you spelled honourable with a u - everyone knows the Americans spell it honorable. But that doesn't diminish the accuracy of your posting!
So in essence, you're saying we should pay for our entertainment through our tax dollars? Well, perhaps that's one way it could be done - however it wouldn't seem to be a very equal system - every one of us would be paying for entertainment whether it interests us or not. I haven't myself been to the "big screen" in probably 5 years. Movies don't really interest me. I have never "downloaded a torrent" nor "ripped a DVD copy". I am not a movie watcher. I'm not really a music listener in the consumer sense either - I listen to the radio for 30 minutes each morning - about 25 minutes of that is listening to DJ's chatter and the morning news and local advertising - they may play one or two songs. My entertainment is in outdoor sports and activities. I prefer to spend my money on sailing, fishing, boating, mountain biking, camping, dog sledding, snowmobiling, and skiing - I find that takes up 95% of my entertainment time and budget - so should my tax dollars go to supporting movies, music, and the arts - since the consumers of those mediums have come to expect that they will be provided for them at little to no cost? I guess it's one way we could go, perhaps not the worse way, but I wouldn't mind seeing the government subsidize the local ski resorts, fishing tackle shops, snowmobile camps, etc. to an equal amount as well - after all my entertainment is important too isn't it?
80s? I did this last week with the exact same number of questions at the crossing between Johnstown/Ogdensburg over the St. Lawrence river. I'm a US citizen, with Canadian permanant residency, living in Canada, with a Canadian drivers licence and car with Ontario plates. On the way over at the US border crossing: US Guard: Citizenship? Me: "US" Him "You currently live in Canada?" Me: "Yes" Him: "Purpose of visit to US?" Me: " Some shopping and a tank of gas" Him "have a nice day" (no request for ID, or other information) On the return trip arrpoximately 2 hours later: Canadian Guard: Citizenship? Me: "US" Him: "Your are in a canadian vehicle? Do you live here" Me: "Yes, I just went shopping in Ogdensburg and got a tank of gas" Him: "that was the purpose of your visit to the US?" Me: "Yes" Him: "Have a nice day"
Didn't seem all that bad to me... neither asked for ID, passport, permanent resident card, drivers licence, birth certificate, or anything else. I'm sure they ran my licence plate through their automated system and saw I was only gone 2 hours. They didn't ask how much I bought while I was in the US, if I had anything to declare, or for that matter if I had any prohibited items, etc. (Usually they ask about alcohol/duty free to declare, mace, pepper spray, firearms, and sometimes other things).
Now mind you - this was a wednesday at 2 in the afternoon, I was the only car at the border crossing going either direction, and I am a middle 30's white male driving a family sedan - however - it still felt like the 'ol days - in my opinion.
Not that I'm planning on it - but my new Dell laptop purchased the last week of November, with "recovery only" - also comes with a certificate to pick up a free copy of "Vista Upgrade" - so on the off chance the laptop were to get Vista Upgrade installed, and then used, and the hard drive dies (this happens often on my laptops - I throw them around like luggage - I should probably get a mil-spec one) -- I would have the same issue -- previously (XP upgrade, 2K upgrade) - during the install process when it looks for your old version, you could just stick a Win98 CD in the drive, it verifies it, and then continues the install. Will Vista Upgrade let me put in my old XP cd, or even Win98 cd, to continue the install? Or will I have to do a full recovery with Dell's recovery and install of XP (and all those added fun things I uninstall as soon as I open the box) to re-add the Vista Upgrade?
Well in any case - moot point for me - the laptop will run XP until it dies and the next laptop will probably come with Vista from the factory and I'll have to decide to leave it or not. But there are probably thousands out there with these upgrade certs. who will be using them and not know this.
Certainly, at least in the US, some spammers could be considered enemies of the state and enemy combatants, if they are spamming government email addresses and cause congestion or other undue strain on the mailboxes of government employees and staff members. So, just declare them an enemy combatant, they lose their rights as a citizen, they get moved to Guantanamo, the suspected terrorists they share quarters with find out they are spammers, and they swiftly end their lives without prejudice. Why? Because their last terrorist bombing was thwarted because their cell of operatives couldn't get their proper instructions by email, because they were too busy trying to filter out the stock pump-n-dump emails for PHYK.PK and the ones from the Cialis pushers. Problem solved.
So how does the number of possible snowflake configurations compare with the number of possible IPV6 addresses? Can we assign a unique address to every snowflake and then just see if we get an address conflict somewhere?
This often makes me wonder how often the GPS receiver in my cell phone is actually working. I have both a Garmin and a Magellan hand-held receiver, each which cost several hundred $, and neither of them pick up any useful signal or work even 10% of the time anywhere indoors, in my vehicle while I drive, or even when I'm under moderate to heavy tree cover or building cover. They stick themselves in "acquiring signal mode" until they return to a relatively clear view of the sky to get signal from at least 3 satellites.
My mobile on the other hand, cost $99, has a camera, MP3 player, bluetooth, cell capabilities obviously, and probably several other features I don't know of (Moto e815) as well as this "GPS" feature, so the GPS cant exactly be state of the art or top of the line. I would have to think that 80 to 90 percent of the time, if not more, the phone cannot be getting any sort of meaningful GPS data - so in reality, unless I'm standing out in the open, with a clear view of the sky, with few buildings around, etc. - the GPS isn't actually doing a thing other than perhaps wasting some of my battery life trying to acquire a signal from a few satellites. I have a feeling if I call 911 with it, I'll still be telling them my location the old fashioned way - especially since the cellular tower nearest my location is a good 10 km away and covers an area probably close to 200 sq. km - that sure narrows things down for the emergency crews. Wasted feature if you ask me.
I'll bite on this one. All Arctic Cat snowmobiles made between 1996 and 2000 use the same key. Use this information carefully and wisely. Hopefully no one minds my sharing that information.
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This is absolutely correct. I used to own a small convenience store and gas station - independently operated - I could buy my fuel from whatever supplier would deliver to me at the best price. The suppliers were also for the most part independently operated - some would buy fuel from various depots, others were married to specific suppliers, however, they purchased the fuel in large quantities (typically 100,000 L increments) and stored the fuel in underground tanks at their distribution facility.
When I would call to order 10,000L of fuel each week, they would fill the 2 compartments in the truck to 80% of their capacity (2 x 6000L compartments filled to 80% = 9600 L) and head out on the highway to my location. After an hour in the sun on a hot day driving to my location, the usual delivery quantity that the register on the back of the delivery truck would read after emptying the 2 compartments was around 9750L - I had to pay for 9750L. The same truck on a cold day in November would often deliver me only 9500L - even though at the distribution terminal they had filled the truck to their set 80% - 9600L.
My tanks were underground and typically a thermometer dip in the fuel showed a temperature around 58F. So when I bought fuel in the summer - I was often cheated of almost 150L of fuel - I would pay for 9750L to put in my tank, and it would cool down and by the time I pumped it for the customers - I only had 9600L available to pump out. My mark-up was 3c/L - so on 10,000 L approx $300. The "missing" 150L cost me about $150. My profit margin was cut in half in the summer. I figure I somewhat made up for it in the colder months - but it would have been nice if the delivery trucks had been temperature compensating.
I'm out of that business now - $300 a week profit from selling gas just doesn't pay the bills. I'm surprised any small independent gas stations are still in operation.
The iMac's would be competitive if they would put the bigger screen on a less spec'd out model - A "Dell Desktop" can be had with a 20" LCD, Core2Duo, 500 Gig's of space, and 2GB RAM for under $1000... the 20" iMac is minimum $1700 over at the local BestBuy. MacBooks are even further down the competitive price chain - to get a screen big enough to see what you are typing you need a MacBook Pro - why can't they sell the "specs of a MacBook" in a MacBook pro case with the bigger screen? I can get a MacBook for $1200 but it has an awful 13" screen - and the cheapest MacBook Pro (still only a 15.4" screen) is a minimum of $1999. My HP laptop (dv9300) with a 17" screen, Core 2 Duo, 2 GB RAM, 240GB Hard drive was only $1499 (and it's running Ubuntu 7.04) - that puts the Mac prices back in line with how expensive they really are. My eyes aren't as good as they used to be. I need a 17" screen laptop and a 20" screen on my desktop. Apple can't seem to do that for me without taking a loan against my house for some reason. Maybe someone in Apple land in the product development and marketing group reads /. - if so - hear my pleas! I WILL buy a Mac - if you make ones with bigger screens affordable!
I run a small business and this is exactly how the credit card transactions take place. A customer comes in to the store and purchases something and wishes to use their credit card - the card is swiped through a terminal that uses a dial-up modem connection back to the bank's clearing house - a conversation takes place between the terminal and the remote server (at a mighty 9600bps) - and either a "approved" or "declined" is returned and a *PAPER* receipt (2 part) is thermally printed. The customer gets one copy of that and one copy of the register receipt. I keep one copy of the register receipt for proof of what they purchased, along with the signed copy of their purchase. The credit card companies (Visa/MC/Am Ex) all require I keep those paper records for 1 year in case of charge backs, etc. Each evening when the business closes the paper receipts are collected and put in a manilla envelope marked with the day's date and the envelope is placed in a locked filing cabinet in the back office. At the beginning of each month, credit card purchase receipts more than 1 year past are burned in the incinerator - the filing cabinet never has more than 12 past months data, and none if it is stored in electronic format anywhere on premise. The point of sale software's database has a record of all transactions ever taken place as far as inventory, amount paid, taxes collected - but it has nothing that can tie the purchase to a customer or that customer's financial information. I don't see why any size business of any type couldn't follow that method of doing business.
There are LED nightlights that use something on the order of 5 mW of power - they are wonderful things for rooms that contain the "facilities" - you don't have to blind yourself in the middle of the night either. Frankly when I do have to turn the lights on in the middle of the night for some reason (e.g. wife says "what waa that noise?!?!??"), I am appreciative of the "slow glow" of CFL's - I don't get insta-retinal-explosion!
Well then how about a retinal scanner built into the back of the device? That should cut down on its usefulness to a thief - and there certainly aren't retinal patterns "left" on the device like there are fingerprints.
No - you're not alone. I much prefer the light from CFL's to the light of incandescent bulbs. I had been suffering the last 2 years with the horrible orange yellow light of the incandescent bulbs in my chandaleir fixtures, because there were no candelabra base CFL's. Last week my local Canadian Tire started carrying GE candelabra base bulbs. It didn't take me 2 minutes to make the decision to buy the 18 of them I needed to replace the 18 remaining incandescent bulbs in my house - even at $6 *per bulb* (yes, they are a new product so they are pricey - I normally buy the 6 pack of Noma 13W CFL's on sale for $5.99 - $1 per CFL, and they are relatively instant on, a nice soft white colour, no flicker, and their warm-up is short enough that within 15-30 seconds the bulb is to full brightness). That's completed my transition for every bulb in my house except for the one in my refrigerator. I will be looking for an LED lamp for in there - as the cold is somewhat prohibitive to use of CFL's.
If anyone can't wait the 15 seconds for a bulb to go to full brightness, they are in too much of a hurry. If they can't find one with the colour they like, keep looking, I found a brand that was both inexpensive and pleasing to myself, my wife, and the rest of our family. I haven't had to replace one in 2 years since I moved into this house and replaced all the legacy bulbs. I estimate with the 20-25 bulbs, 6-8 of which are on significant length of time each day, that I've saved roughly $200 each year in electricity.
Perhaps the companies that make these bulbs should work on emphasizing return and recycling type programs through local retailers. If I can take my beer and wine bottles back to the Beer Store and get $0.10 - $0.25 each - why not be able to take my "dead" CFL's back to WalMart or Canadian Tire and get $0.20 or so back - they send them back to the MFG, the mercury is reclaimed and reused (that's good for the environment), the ballast is removed from the base and a fresh one is put in, and the bulbs can then be sold as "remanufactured" at a discount (maybe instead of $1/bulb, only $0.75/bulb) - that plus my $0.20 for my return of the bulb to recycling, would bring the indiviual bulb costs down to around $0.50 -- I've never bought a decent incandescent bulb for any cheaper than that - certainly not one that used 1/6 the electricity and lasted 6 times longer. Even the heavy duty "rural incandescent" bulbs that are supposed to give 5000 hours burn dimmer, with an orange tint, and cost upwards of $1.50/bulb. No bargain there.
Shop around - find CFL's that appease your eyes and your wallet - replace every bulb you can - bask in your electricity savings - and hold on to the old CFL's (they really don't die all that often - you won't be throwing many out in the ~5 years most people stay in a house) - and hopefully once everywhere has legislated energy efficient bulbs in - the recycling infrastructure for them will begin to appear.
Actually various states and provinces have regulations regarding collector cars, classic cars, and other special one-off items that allow you to completely bypass any and all current emission and safety requirements. If you take your Model A for a Sunday drive, it doesn't have to be equipped with safety belts, automatic windshield wipers, or even a functional front bumper - and obviously it doesn't have to meet any emissions requirements. Chances are good in most areas, at least in North America, where the buyer for this vehicle is somewhat likely to be (after all they are buing it from a San Francisco Bay Area dealership from a seller in Livermore) - a special custom car such as this, being a piece of TV memorabilia, custom built and made, and over 20 years old, you could apply and make the case for a classic or custom car status, and be allowed to drive it on the highway. Perhaps under certain restrictions, but, still wouldn't have to be "trailered only".
This isn't necessarily true - I think 2/3 of my courses throughout university were marked with about 75% to 90% of the grade derived from performance on one or two midterms and a comprehensive final exam. That at a northeastern US "state university" for a degree in Computer Engineering. Of the other 1/3 of my courses that were not entirely graded through the midterm and final, the vast majority were programming courses that required projects of various sorts, and were typically done in groups, with each group having a very specific unique individual project to work on that couldn't easily be copied or plagiarized from anyone in the class or anyone previously. I had 2 courses in all of my program that required writing an actual "paper" - one was a religious studies course - and much of my content did come from the Internet - very little cut and paste however. The other course was a philosophy class that required each student to do a paper tying together theories from 4 to 6 different philosophers, with each and every student in the class having a different combination of philosophers and their writings that they were to work from - again - something almost impossible to find "online content for".
I don't think there was anything wrong with the education I received, and I personally felt cheating without being caught would have been if not next to impossible, certainly not worth the risk vs. reward. It was just easier to do my own work. If more professors weren't lazy and were willing to do things in the manner I was exposed to, I think we wouldn't even be having this discussion.
That line of thought I buy. In Canada, we pay a tax on blank CD's - the idea being some of that $ goes back to content producers - that seems fair to me. It's not a large tax obviously, when I can buy a 100 pack of blank CD-R's for $19.95 - so even if I'm not using them for audio content the tax isn't harmfully large - and it's probably representative of the "maybe 40%" of blank CD-R's that are used for unfunded copying of entertainment content that should have been paid for. I see no problem with a tax on TV's based on their size perhaps? A tax placed on ISP's which could be passed through to end users based on how much "torrent/p2p traffic they carry" (and I know someone will complain saying "I only use get .torrents of Linux ISO images", because I am one of those people, but I don't think I'd complain about that tax anyway - knowing maybe 50% or more of the torrents out there are again unfunded copying of entertainment), perhaps a tax on all audio playing devices, and all devices capable of reproducing video output as well. If the content becomes extremely inexpensive or next to free - shifting the cost to the devices to help fund the artists seems fair. Shifting the cost to society at large - to some extent - is also permissible - to the extent that yes, the arts do help society to some extent. But remember, from the beginning of recorded history up until 110 years ago, there were no motion pictures, and society flourished just the same, authors have rarely received any state funding, and fine artists were often hired to produce works that were then "free for the masses for their consumption" (e.g. Ceiling of Sistine Chapel), and musical composers and performers were generally only financially compensated through live performances. I don't really know anyone who buys or trades recordings of symphony orchestras, going to the event is the event you pay for, and the symphony orchestras still flourish.
I guess my thought on all this is - the arts will survive without direct compensation for content from the end users through their respective **AA's - the business models have to change - the financial sources have to change - direct payments from end users can be a portion but can't always be depended on - some taxes can and should be a portion of this - new business models should be a portion of this - but shifting the burden to the general public probably isn't necessarily the only answer - the governments waste too much of the tax dollars collected in sales taxes and income taxes in administration (perhaps as much if not more than the **AA's run away with) - so - only time will show us what the new world of arts and media will be. In the mean time, I'm going for a walk outside.
I'm calling you out on this AC - you're not American - you spelled honourable with a u - everyone knows the Americans spell it honorable. But that doesn't diminish the accuracy of your posting!
So in essence, you're saying we should pay for our entertainment through our tax dollars? Well, perhaps that's one way it could be done - however it wouldn't seem to be a very equal system - every one of us would be paying for entertainment whether it interests us or not. I haven't myself been to the "big screen" in probably 5 years. Movies don't really interest me. I have never "downloaded a torrent" nor "ripped a DVD copy". I am not a movie watcher. I'm not really a music listener in the consumer sense either - I listen to the radio for 30 minutes each morning - about 25 minutes of that is listening to DJ's chatter and the morning news and local advertising - they may play one or two songs. My entertainment is in outdoor sports and activities. I prefer to spend my money on sailing, fishing, boating, mountain biking, camping, dog sledding, snowmobiling, and skiing - I find that takes up 95% of my entertainment time and budget - so should my tax dollars go to supporting movies, music, and the arts - since the consumers of those mediums have come to expect that they will be provided for them at little to no cost? I guess it's one way we could go, perhaps not the worse way, but I wouldn't mind seeing the government subsidize the local ski resorts, fishing tackle shops, snowmobile camps, etc. to an equal amount as well - after all my entertainment is important too isn't it?
80s? I did this last week with the exact same number of questions at the crossing between Johnstown/Ogdensburg over the St. Lawrence river. I'm a US citizen, with Canadian permanant residency, living in Canada, with a Canadian drivers licence and car with Ontario plates. On the way over at the US border crossing:
US Guard: Citizenship?
Me: "US"
Him "You currently live in Canada?"
Me: "Yes"
Him: "Purpose of visit to US?"
Me: " Some shopping and a tank of gas"
Him "have a nice day" (no request for ID, or other information)
On the return trip arrpoximately 2 hours later:
Canadian Guard: Citizenship?
Me: "US"
Him: "Your are in a canadian vehicle? Do you live here"
Me: "Yes, I just went shopping in Ogdensburg and got a tank of gas"
Him: "that was the purpose of your visit to the US?"
Me: "Yes"
Him: "Have a nice day"
Didn't seem all that bad to me... neither asked for ID, passport, permanent resident card, drivers licence, birth certificate, or anything else. I'm sure they ran my licence plate through their automated system and saw I was only gone 2 hours. They didn't ask how much I bought while I was in the US, if I had anything to declare, or for that matter if I had any prohibited items, etc. (Usually they ask about alcohol/duty free to declare, mace, pepper spray, firearms, and sometimes other things).
Now mind you - this was a wednesday at 2 in the afternoon, I was the only car at the border crossing going either direction, and I am a middle 30's white male driving a family sedan - however - it still felt like the 'ol days - in my opinion.
Not that I'm planning on it - but my new Dell laptop purchased the last week of November, with "recovery only" - also comes with a certificate to pick up a free copy of "Vista Upgrade" - so on the off chance the laptop were to get Vista Upgrade installed, and then used, and the hard drive dies (this happens often on my laptops - I throw them around like luggage - I should probably get a mil-spec one) -- I would have the same issue -- previously (XP upgrade, 2K upgrade) - during the install process when it looks for your old version, you could just stick a Win98 CD in the drive, it verifies it, and then continues the install. Will Vista Upgrade let me put in my old XP cd, or even Win98 cd, to continue the install? Or will I have to do a full recovery with Dell's recovery and install of XP (and all those added fun things I uninstall as soon as I open the box) to re-add the Vista Upgrade?
Well in any case - moot point for me - the laptop will run XP until it dies and the next laptop will probably come with Vista from the factory and I'll have to decide to leave it or not. But there are probably thousands out there with these upgrade certs. who will be using them and not know this.
Certainly, at least in the US, some spammers could be considered enemies of the state and enemy combatants, if they are spamming government email addresses and cause congestion or other undue strain on the mailboxes of government employees and staff members. So, just declare them an enemy combatant, they lose their rights as a citizen, they get moved to Guantanamo, the suspected terrorists they share quarters with find out they are spammers, and they swiftly end their lives without prejudice. Why? Because their last terrorist bombing was thwarted because their cell of operatives couldn't get their proper instructions by email, because they were too busy trying to filter out the stock pump-n-dump emails for PHYK.PK and the ones from the Cialis pushers. Problem solved.
So how does the number of possible snowflake configurations compare with the number of possible IPV6 addresses? Can we assign a unique address to every snowflake and then just see if we get an address conflict somewhere?
This often makes me wonder how often the GPS receiver in my cell phone is actually working. I have both a Garmin and a Magellan hand-held receiver, each which cost several hundred $, and neither of them pick up any useful signal or work even 10% of the time anywhere indoors, in my vehicle while I drive, or even when I'm under moderate to heavy tree cover or building cover. They stick themselves in "acquiring signal mode" until they return to a relatively clear view of the sky to get signal from at least 3 satellites. My mobile on the other hand, cost $99, has a camera, MP3 player, bluetooth, cell capabilities obviously, and probably several other features I don't know of (Moto e815) as well as this "GPS" feature, so the GPS cant exactly be state of the art or top of the line. I would have to think that 80 to 90 percent of the time, if not more, the phone cannot be getting any sort of meaningful GPS data - so in reality, unless I'm standing out in the open, with a clear view of the sky, with few buildings around, etc. - the GPS isn't actually doing a thing other than perhaps wasting some of my battery life trying to acquire a signal from a few satellites. I have a feeling if I call 911 with it, I'll still be telling them my location the old fashioned way - especially since the cellular tower nearest my location is a good 10 km away and covers an area probably close to 200 sq. km - that sure narrows things down for the emergency crews. Wasted feature if you ask me.
I'll bite on this one. All Arctic Cat snowmobiles made between 1996 and 2000 use the same key. Use this information carefully and wisely. Hopefully no one minds my sharing that information.