By the way, as for driving a race car: no, I have not. However, I have donned a racing helmet and ridden shotgun in a race-setup street car down at Seattle International Raceway and it was quite an amazing experience. Obviously not the same as driving one, and certainly not the same type of car as, say, and formula race car, but since you seem inclined to reading way much into my use of the phrase "race car" I am left tempted to ask the following: Seriously dude have _you_ ever driven a race car?
I didn't suggest anything in particular about what people were _getting_, just what they were _desiring_.:)
At the end of the day, the majority of people are desiring a set of vehicle characteristics that are almost directly in opposition to one another, and in order to produce what they demand one has to throw in a good amount of power for the acceleration they want, huge amounts of mass to give them that living room on wheels, and then yet more power to recover the acceleration that was lost due to adding the mass of the living room on wheels. It is no wonder that these "requirements" result in vehicles that are so abysmally wasteful that they make much of consumerism look downright thrifty.
Considering that more than ten years ago (IIRC) Honda offered in North America a Civic variant that did in excess of 70 MPG I'm having a hard time believing that it is going to take $50k some years in the future to hit 60 MPG.
Technology is not the problem. The problem is people's desire for a living room on wheels that can accelerate like a race car.
The part you still seem to be missing, though, is that for any of your arguments to hold any value in the real world you would first have to be able to afford to defend yourself against an onslaught of RIAA lawyers.
It is all well and good that you, Apple, your credit card company, etc. could all get together and defend your name, but you forgot to think about the cost of even having to do so in the first place. How much time and money would it take to get Apple, your credit card company, etc. to help out? (Ignoring for the moment the distinct possibility that they _won't_.) How much time and money would it cost to defend yourself in court?
I'm not saying that Apple was wrong to make this compromise with the powers that be. That said, it doesn't make it any more _right_ that the compromise has the kind of gaping holes in it that lead to false accusation and costly defense. By the way, that compromise (and its holes) still meet the RIAA's true goal: to scare the crap out of you.
Then the question becomes, what should you listen to? Where should you get your music from, if you're to stop buying new music?
I haven't listened to the radio in years, let alone crappy top 40 radio, except for when my alarm clock goes off and is tuned to that crap so as to cause me to jump out of bed to turn the damn thing off.:D And guess what, I'm up to my ears in new music. Drowning in it, actually.
Here's how: There are tonnes of great music blogs out there, and I visit them regularly (via RSS, of course.)
Here's why you can do the same and feel good about it: Music blogs (the legit ones, at least) are provided license to release tracks on a promotional basis, so download away!
Strangely enough, nothing feels slower to me than watching a mac user use their computer. It takes them absolutely forever to do essentially anything relative to watching a Linux user or even a Windows user. I suspect that the UI is no faster and may even be slower than either choose-a-Linux-distro or choose-your-Windows-version but that the eye candy and e-peen enlargement make mac users _enjoy_ sitting and waiting for their computer and therefore do so without noticing the time spent. I would prefer the machine to actually be faster, but to each their own.:)
Oh, I hear ya. This entire set of comments and all of the great suggestions in them are all predicated on people employing the meat between their ears.:)
I will certainly defer to your expertise, seeing as you've "written and used simulations on traffic", and I in fact don't disagree with a number of your points. However, I still take issue with you equating hypermiling technique to being a "slow driver" (as in your last paragraph). Slow drivers are slow drivers. I pulled a 75MPG trip home from work last week and was most certainly not what I would even remotely call a "slow driver" while doing it. Was I using some hypermiling techniques? Yes. Was I slow? Hell no.
Perhaps the issue here is with the term hypermiler. Perhaps it has attained a connotation that it does not deserve. Might you (and others, I'm certainly not calling you out individually on this as, again, I do agree with most of your points) be conflating slow drivers with hypermilers? I think I can probably answer my own question here: I've found myself avoiding using the terms hypermiler or hypermiling or what have you when describing myself and my driving. Maybe I'm already semi-consciously aware that there is such a connotation and have been avoiding it.:)
Hypermiling isn't even remotely about slow driving. It is about accelerating at an optimal rate, cruising at an optimal rate, and carrying no more speed than necessary to get to the next known stop.
Pay special attention to that last one. Carrying no more speed than necessary to get to the next known stop. A hypermiler's behaviour isn't going to affect anyone. If they were all going to be stuck at the next red light, they were all going to be stuck at the next red light. If they were going to make the light, everyone can cruise at their optimal rate.
A hypermiler's behaviour only impacts how other drivers _think_ they are doing in terms of making good time to their destination. Such other drivers love to do things like see that a light is turning red and then _accelerate_ towards it because they want to be first in line. Or because it just feels good. Or whatever. But they'll be waiting at that exact same red light as everyone else, including the hypermilers.
Posts like yours place the blame here on the hypermilers, but the blame should reside elsewhere.
1. Drive like your car has no brakes. Visualize the speed you'd need to not have to touch the brakes due to a slowing of traffic, a traffic light being red, etc. Accelerate to a speed no faster than that. Constantly update this visualized estimate as you drive.
2. For any given target speed, drive in the combination of the highest gear and the lowest RPM that doesn't lug the engine. If you have the space and available speed limit to go a gear higher, then do so. Note that at some point you will hit a gear where wind resistance takes over and reduces your fuel economy.
For #2, you'll need a scan tool with instantaneous fuel economy readout in order to find this gear for your car. Borrow one for a short period if you don't want to buy one. Similarly, you might want to borrow or buy a scan tool in order to refine your "lowest RPM" number, as going as low as you can without lugging it is a good place to start but there may be a sweet spot slightly above that which has even better fuel economy.
As a bonus tip: Learn the stop lights during your regular commute that will force you to idle for more than, say, 45 seconds. Turn your car off when you stop at these intersections. Obviously, if you get to the intersection late in the stop light you might as well leave it running, but that aside you'll quickly learn that there are a lot of times during your commute where you idle for a long time, and idling (as well as creeping) are terrible for fuel economy.
PS - I've already seen one poster mention using engine braking instead of brakes. Ignoring for the moment that doing so would have zero effect on fuel efficiency, I'd like to share a maxim that I learned re: engine braking from a trusted mechanic ages ago: brake pads are cheaper than engine rebuilds.
Again, I do remember shovelware, and I believe I said so back when I first posted. The difference today is not how much copycat garbage there is. The difference today is how little shelf space there is for unique titles when compared to the shelves of yesteryear. Which I said before. Twice. At least.
While I don't disagree with you in that there has always been crap on the shelves, and while I am ready to admit that a certain degree of nostalgia affects my posts on this subject and those of everyone else who feels similarly, it must be said that at least back in those days there was more room left on the shelves for more innovative products.
Yes, but the point he made was that you used to be able to find interesting, novel games just by _going to the store_. You can't do that anymore, and haven't been able to for a very long time, primarily on account of the constant barrage of WW2-shooter-of-the-week, sports-roster-update-'09, etc. games that litter the shelves. Paid for their placement by the game distributors, of course.
There's being able to find things and then there's being able to find things. The GP was right in that you can't readily find much these days.
So as not to completely go against your post, however, I will be buying Mirror's Edge on day 1, so it isn't as if there isn't _anything_ interesting hitting retail. There's just relatively little compared to the golden days.
"there's a huge difference between how IP and real property are treated. There is no double standard."
That difference IS the double standard.
Proponents of IP want the benefits of property ownership but without the cost (which you so rightly pointed out as being the ongoing taxation of that property in return for protection of its nature as privately held.)
As long as the GP is developing software that can run on Windows Server 2008, and is testing his development work on that machine, what he is doing is most definitely covered by the license.
That's all well and good, but the last time I checked the constitution said nothing about the fundamental principals of science. What may not on the one hand be unconstitutional can still on the other hand be very much twisting the formal definition of what is and is not considered science.
Since all of those things can be explained quite clearly, I'm not sure why you'll be waiting for the kids other than perhaps to start undoing our good work of helping them become conscious, confident, self-sufficient, intelligent, knowledgeable, open-minded, free-thinking little people by brainwashing them.
Or fucking them.
I'm never quite sure which one it is that you guys like to do first.
Funny yes, but should be modded even higher still as Insightful. This tiny AC post puts the entire article into far more context than any of the longer posts rated higher than this and/or as Insightful.
The events that resulted in the calculated date of April 16, 1178 B.C. may very well have happened and been handed down accurately over the ages during the telling of the story, but that fact couldn't even be used to reliably date the origin of the story, let alone make it any more factual than the events in Jurassic Park.
Slashdot Mirror
By the way, as for driving a race car: no, I have not. However, I have donned a racing helmet and ridden shotgun in a race-setup street car down at Seattle International Raceway and it was quite an amazing experience. Obviously not the same as driving one, and certainly not the same type of car as, say, and formula race car, but since you seem inclined to reading way much into my use of the phrase "race car" I am left tempted to ask the following: Seriously dude have _you_ ever driven a race car?
I didn't suggest anything in particular about what people were _getting_, just what they were _desiring_. :)
At the end of the day, the majority of people are desiring a set of vehicle characteristics that are almost directly in opposition to one another, and in order to produce what they demand one has to throw in a good amount of power for the acceleration they want, huge amounts of mass to give them that living room on wheels, and then yet more power to recover the acceleration that was lost due to adding the mass of the living room on wheels. It is no wonder that these "requirements" result in vehicles that are so abysmally wasteful that they make much of consumerism look downright thrifty.
Considering that more than ten years ago (IIRC) Honda offered in North America a Civic variant that did in excess of 70 MPG I'm having a hard time believing that it is going to take $50k some years in the future to hit 60 MPG.
Technology is not the problem. The problem is people's desire for a living room on wheels that can accelerate like a race car.
The part you still seem to be missing, though, is that for any of your arguments to hold any value in the real world you would first have to be able to afford to defend yourself against an onslaught of RIAA lawyers.
It is all well and good that you, Apple, your credit card company, etc. could all get together and defend your name, but you forgot to think about the cost of even having to do so in the first place. How much time and money would it take to get Apple, your credit card company, etc. to help out? (Ignoring for the moment the distinct possibility that they _won't_.) How much time and money would it cost to defend yourself in court?
I'm not saying that Apple was wrong to make this compromise with the powers that be. That said, it doesn't make it any more _right_ that the compromise has the kind of gaping holes in it that lead to false accusation and costly defense. By the way, that compromise (and its holes) still meet the RIAA's true goal: to scare the crap out of you.
4. Don't listen to top 40 radio
Then the question becomes, what should you listen to? Where should you get your music from, if you're to stop buying new music?
I haven't listened to the radio in years, let alone crappy top 40 radio, except for when my alarm clock goes off and is tuned to that crap so as to cause me to jump out of bed to turn the damn thing off. :D And guess what, I'm up to my ears in new music. Drowning in it, actually.
Here's how: There are tonnes of great music blogs out there, and I visit them regularly (via RSS, of course.)
Here's why you can do the same and feel good about it: Music blogs (the legit ones, at least) are provided license to release tracks on a promotional basis, so download away!
"found the whole series" ... "quit watching after two episodes"
No offense, but I don't think that after watching two episodes you could have "found the whole series" _anything_ in _any way_.
You're right, but still missing the real reason: to kill used game sales by requiring one-time-only activation on all titles.
Strangely enough, nothing feels slower to me than watching a mac user use their computer. It takes them absolutely forever to do essentially anything relative to watching a Linux user or even a Windows user. I suspect that the UI is no faster and may even be slower than either choose-a-Linux-distro or choose-your-Windows-version but that the eye candy and e-peen enlargement make mac users _enjoy_ sitting and waiting for their computer and therefore do so without noticing the time spent. I would prefer the machine to actually be faster, but to each their own. :)
Oh, I hear ya. This entire set of comments and all of the great suggestions in them are all predicated on people employing the meat between their ears. :)
I will certainly defer to your expertise, seeing as you've "written and used simulations on traffic", and I in fact don't disagree with a number of your points. However, I still take issue with you equating hypermiling technique to being a "slow driver" (as in your last paragraph). Slow drivers are slow drivers. I pulled a 75MPG trip home from work last week and was most certainly not what I would even remotely call a "slow driver" while doing it. Was I using some hypermiling techniques? Yes. Was I slow? Hell no.
Perhaps the issue here is with the term hypermiler. Perhaps it has attained a connotation that it does not deserve. Might you (and others, I'm certainly not calling you out individually on this as, again, I do agree with most of your points) be conflating slow drivers with hypermilers? I think I can probably answer my own question here: I've found myself avoiding using the terms hypermiler or hypermiling or what have you when describing myself and my driving. Maybe I'm already semi-consciously aware that there is such a connotation and have been avoiding it. :)
Hypermiling isn't even remotely about slow driving. It is about accelerating at an optimal rate, cruising at an optimal rate, and carrying no more speed than necessary to get to the next known stop.
Pay special attention to that last one. Carrying no more speed than necessary to get to the next known stop. A hypermiler's behaviour isn't going to affect anyone. If they were all going to be stuck at the next red light, they were all going to be stuck at the next red light. If they were going to make the light, everyone can cruise at their optimal rate.
A hypermiler's behaviour only impacts how other drivers _think_ they are doing in terms of making good time to their destination. Such other drivers love to do things like see that a light is turning red and then _accelerate_ towards it because they want to be first in line. Or because it just feels good. Or whatever. But they'll be waiting at that exact same red light as everyone else, including the hypermilers.
Posts like yours place the blame here on the hypermilers, but the blame should reside elsewhere.
1. Drive like your car has no brakes. Visualize the speed you'd need to not have to touch the brakes due to a slowing of traffic, a traffic light being red, etc. Accelerate to a speed no faster than that. Constantly update this visualized estimate as you drive.
2. For any given target speed, drive in the combination of the highest gear and the lowest RPM that doesn't lug the engine. If you have the space and available speed limit to go a gear higher, then do so. Note that at some point you will hit a gear where wind resistance takes over and reduces your fuel economy.
For #2, you'll need a scan tool with instantaneous fuel economy readout in order to find this gear for your car. Borrow one for a short period if you don't want to buy one. Similarly, you might want to borrow or buy a scan tool in order to refine your "lowest RPM" number, as going as low as you can without lugging it is a good place to start but there may be a sweet spot slightly above that which has even better fuel economy.
As a bonus tip: Learn the stop lights during your regular commute that will force you to idle for more than, say, 45 seconds. Turn your car off when you stop at these intersections. Obviously, if you get to the intersection late in the stop light you might as well leave it running, but that aside you'll quickly learn that there are a lot of times during your commute where you idle for a long time, and idling (as well as creeping) are terrible for fuel economy.
PS - I've already seen one poster mention using engine braking instead of brakes. Ignoring for the moment that doing so would have zero effect on fuel efficiency, I'd like to share a maxim that I learned re: engine braking from a trusted mechanic ages ago: brake pads are cheaper than engine rebuilds.
No need for a message when the subject line says it all.
Again, I do remember shovelware, and I believe I said so back when I first posted. The difference today is not how much copycat garbage there is. The difference today is how little shelf space there is for unique titles when compared to the shelves of yesteryear. Which I said before. Twice. At least.
While I don't disagree with you in that there has always been crap on the shelves, and while I am ready to admit that a certain degree of nostalgia affects my posts on this subject and those of everyone else who feels similarly, it must be said that at least back in those days there was more room left on the shelves for more innovative products.
"There's stuff out there if you actually look."
Yes, but the point he made was that you used to be able to find interesting, novel games just by _going to the store_. You can't do that anymore, and haven't been able to for a very long time, primarily on account of the constant barrage of WW2-shooter-of-the-week, sports-roster-update-'09, etc. games that litter the shelves. Paid for their placement by the game distributors, of course.
There's being able to find things and then there's being able to find things. The GP was right in that you can't readily find much these days.
So as not to completely go against your post, however, I will be buying Mirror's Edge on day 1, so it isn't as if there isn't _anything_ interesting hitting retail. There's just relatively little compared to the golden days.
The SDK kills pirates?!?! ;)
"there's a huge difference between how IP and real property are treated. There is no double standard."
That difference IS the double standard.
Proponents of IP want the benefits of property ownership but without the cost (which you so rightly pointed out as being the ongoing taxation of that property in return for protection of its nature as privately held.)
PS - #24222401 is me, but I had forgotten to log in from work. ;)
As long as the GP is developing software that can run on Windows Server 2008, and is testing his development work on that machine, what he is doing is most definitely covered by the license.
n/t
That's all well and good, but the last time I checked the constitution said nothing about the fundamental principals of science. What may not on the one hand be unconstitutional can still on the other hand be very much twisting the formal definition of what is and is not considered science.
Since all of those things can be explained quite clearly, I'm not sure why you'll be waiting for the kids other than perhaps to start undoing our good work of helping them become conscious, confident, self-sufficient, intelligent, knowledgeable, open-minded, free-thinking little people by brainwashing them.
Or fucking them.
I'm never quite sure which one it is that you guys like to do first.
Funny yes, but should be modded even higher still as Insightful. This tiny AC post puts the entire article into far more context than any of the longer posts rated higher than this and/or as Insightful.
The events that resulted in the calculated date of April 16, 1178 B.C. may very well have happened and been handed down accurately over the ages during the telling of the story, but that fact couldn't even be used to reliably date the origin of the story, let alone make it any more factual than the events in Jurassic Park.