I couldn't agree more. This proposal is the most ridiculous idea I've ever imagined coming from Oregon.
I can think of 4 stupid laws/proposals that would make more sense. 1) tax vehicles by weight via insurance premiums 2) raise taxes at the pump to compensate 3) raise income taxes 4) tax families with more than 1 car
and just a throw in, expand the MAX in Portland out to Vancouver WA
Punishing those who are trying to be better for the environment seems so absurd it must be coming from someone on crack.
Arguably, the legions of Mormons knocking on doors do more damage than anything Scientology does. Then there's Jehovah's Witness which are in the same damaged goods camp.
Not a Mormon, I grew up with plenty around. They have mind boggling beliefs and are decidedly self interested and encourage exclusionary practices. There is little difference between Mormonism and Scientology. Both wrote a book to follow. Both are insidious. Both make ridiculous claims.
Arguing that one is 'better' than another is like arguing which shit does more good instead of which shit is stinkier.
If you have ever flown, you've been on board a plane with dozens of cell phones that have -not- been turned off, electronics in luggage that haven't been turned off, an the list goes on -- on every flight for the last 20 years, and probably much more.
Stupid regulations are stupid. If you really spend more that a second actually thinking about it, aircraft would be dropping out of the sky every second because of electronic interference. And if electronic interference caused problems like that, we'd be really wondering what kind of lame ass testing they do with their electronics on their plane. No shielding, open air, hand soldered, flimsy electronics, usually put together by a high-school-enthusiast-intern. It would be dropping like paper each time radar shined on them.
human brain simulation mostly be like this: 'what am I going to wear to the party?' 'I hope they like me.' 'Is someone hearing my thoughts?' 'who did this to me?'
Sorry, our common sense is copyrighted and only available in Canada. For more information about Common Sense international availability, please contact our lawyers. They will be watching you carefully for any infringement, intentional or accidental.
However, we're driving the car now. And heading into the cliff wall with it.
The problem isn't the car, it's the number of people - as population grows WE all suffer.
i.e less people, less power required, less agriculture, less environmental stresses. The opposite is basically true too.
Everyone who has, or has had multiple children are the root multiplier of the problems we are facing today. To blame any single technology as the problem is disingenuous.
I sense sarcasm... and good point. No idea is perfect for every situation.
After thinking about it a bit, it might just be a nice way to update the bios on 100s of servers. suppose this: You have 100s of extra USB keys (say colored blue), then update the bios on all of them the same way on your secure workstation. Spot test a few (or all of them) independently, and then walk through your server farm swapping the keys (old ones, black, with new ones, blue). Perhaps it can be hot-swapped - less server down-time. Since your requirements would be frequent bios updates because your server hardware changes all the time, perhaps there could be convenient accessible spot for the usb key for bios updates, or a single shared usb bios slot for a rack (some sort of auto-detect usb multiswitch comes to mind).
Along the same logic, I would argue, why do we need to have the bios have built in writable flash memory these days? So many simple options to solve this come to mind, but if I really wanted to update the bois - which is incredibly rare - couldn't we be a little more hands on and use a USB key for example? here's a possible solution: - I could pull out a small USB drive/key from the special slot on the mobo - stick it into my USB slot on a running computer - write a new bios to it with my fancy updater tool - simple so far - stick it back into the mobo (it could even lock in with a clip for those who vibrate a lot) - (re)boot - new bios is read from the -special- USB.
bonuses: - if something goes wrong - place in a new different USB drive/key - test with a different USB drive/key to see if the update is better, then update the special one - I can think of others too!
what I mean by "special USB", is that it is only accessed and read by a booting bios, so doesn't have pass through or presence to the OS. It may be especially small.
I seem to remember somewhere that we don't really need much of a BIOS since the kernels do all the probing for themselves a second time anyway, so in many respects we have 2 boots, once (slowly) in BIOS, which is promptly thrown away, and another in whatever OS you might load.
I have no interest in Avengers, Batman, nor Spiderman -- DC or Marvel, whatever -- they aren't sparking anything in me. Finding a movie that's interesting and that plays in a theater is getting harder and harder, especially when the good ones fly through in a single weekend making it sometimes near impossible to see. Marginally good ones aren't around much at all, making it so disappointing to find something entertaining.
TV isn't much better for selection, I guess that means I'm getting old, or movies are becoming something of a past art form... but there is a ton of crap throughout the history of it.
Groovy is OK. Your suspicions are correct. Debugging it is sometimes worse than pure Java because you really don't know where it actually broke. If we are talking about web development, then probably looking at Grails - which doesn't run the same on development as in deployment. On top of that, It makes assumptions that I don't like. It does have some nice features nevertheless.
This idea of owning has been bugging me for a while, and I'm coming to the conclusion that it does't matter: i.e. 'own' vs 'rent'. The difference is rather semantic and maybe the problem down to the core. I'm stepping rather out of scope here, but it is similar to the idea of discovering vs inventing. Perhaps a little humility is in dire need. This blade cuts both ways. If all things are 'rented' then we can say that corporations, governments, or individuals have no rights to anything. Perhaps our laws should reflect that idea more.
It is a nice thought that I 'own' something - anything even - but really, I'm even renting this body for a few decades or whatever. Soon enough, it will belong to no one. Owning software is more fleeting, and in many cases, it is a use once, and discard. Most games, movies and TV shows are obviously like that. The fact that we could buy some media on a CD, DVD, or a book, for example, is really about a convenient way to access the content therein, but we never 'own' the content, at least I don't claim 'that song is mine' or 'that story is mine'. We barely own the media since it is slowly degraded over time to uselessness.
Even when I buy a house, and then later sell it, it is pretty equivalent to renting it too. I think it is especially easy to see the similariities if I've a mortgage on it. i.e. the 'bank' owns it and I'm paying them to stay there. I may make a few dollars back on my sale... maybe. But usually, I'm just in a different house with another mortgage. i.e. rent.
When I die... I personally lose it all. gone.
I think you hit the issue with the restrictive terms. This is a problem that is not easy to overcome. Owning is not really the important thing, and it might actually be more important to consider it always a rental. But not having access due to some restrictive terms, like you live in Mexico, or Canada, so no access to your software, would the serious detrimental problem. That's when you want to have software installed vs streamed -- and not DRM locked so when you cross a border (virtual or not) you lose access to stuff you normally have access to use.
To try, and then lose, is far better than not trying.
But if you both win, you will be doing your country a service - you'll get a great pension - and you'll make a difference. Hopefully a positive one.
It's not that hard either.
To be a State Representative: -must be 25 years of age at the time of the election -reside in the state that you represent -citizen for 7 years -win election
To be a Senator
-must be 30 years or older at time of election -citizen for 9 years -reside in the state you are running in
Then the State requirements to be placed on the ballot apparently vary, but it seems that it is something like, the candidate gather 500 signatures.
really? I have no idea when any business opens or closes anymore without consulting every business's website. Truly there is no real consistency. Sure you can guess that most every business opens by 10am and close after 4pm, but I'm surprised how often I'm wrong about each one too! I have to admit that stores in malls tend to keep similar hours, but that isn't 100% either.
So many business open anywhere from 7:30am to 10am in my area, and I find that if I drop by thinking some business must be open, I'm often foolishly waiting for yet another 15 minutes, or coming back another day kicking myself that I didn't check *before* I left.
The other trouble is days. open monday-saturday, tuesday-sunday, tuesday-saturday, closed wednesday, or the worst being monday-friday. And the infamous, gone fishing! If the idea of someone setting their business hours to different times bothers you, you need help.
I know at my job that really, any time period would be ok. There needs to be some overlap with various positions, but that's about it. There is no real business hours to speak of. Meetings with people are agreed upon and set.
I also am quite aware that many management folk think their workers are doing nothing if they don't see them working. Classic micro-managing style.
The people that made the internet viable early on were people who both understood what the network could provide and wanted it.
Those of us who spent our nights dialing between BBSes and trading phone numbers were waiting in the shadows for something more connected. Once the internet became more available (i.e. not just military or universities) climbed on board as soon as we could. It is this kind of group that made the network valuable. This Viewtron system was very closed and controlled. As a user you had access to commercial stuff, but nothing shared between users other than email. The one major thing it missed was porn -- 20/20.
Otherwise it is a barely usable brick targeted to people who don't care anyway. It's a certain flop. No surprise.
It is interesting how forward thinking it was though. 15000 people is quite a few, but only 1/1000th of what was needed to recover costs.
After quickly reading the report, it seems that pedestrians are more likely to be hit when a hybrid is going very slow, like when turning a corner in a low speed area. The blanket solution is to have EV making sound all the time, which to me is ridiculous. However, maybe it is worth emitting sound when the brake is freshly released and the EV is speeding up. Maybe a pedestrian can be alerted to the fact that the previously stopped EV is not stopped anymore and should start running for their lives!
Needless to say, a fast running car makes tons of sound from it's tires and other crap -- EV or not. A stopped EV is much like a parked car, and it might be worth knowing it has started to roll from a pedestrian/cyclist point of view. The recommendations just show a lack of imagination, really. The recommendation could easily have been that everyone must always have loud music playing while driving. That would also be sufficient. Pump up the Volume
I was always under the impression that the 68k vs 8086 architecture produced far less heat for the same throughput.
If that was true then, and is still true, then current processors could be consuming less power under a different architecture and doing the same work. Given that my cell phone's ARM chip is more powerful than my old PC, and heats up far less no matter how much I gab on it might give some credence to the concept.
The same type of scenario could easily happen over an entire city once this technology becomes common enough. Pretty soon there's enough coverage that law enforcement (or anyone else, for that matter) might be able to pay for (or coerce via legislation) private owners to give them access to the data. Now "criminals" can be caught by simply driving past that Chevron station on the corner and detailed data mining of your personal travel habits is effortless and completely legal. The entire vehicle-owning public is suddenly under constant, real-time surveillance.
I think that it is better to refer to "dissidents" rather than "criminals" in conversations like this one. Everyone gets bent up on the fact that someone is breaking a reasonable law, and being labelled a criminal. No one cares if a criminal, in the sanest sense, is caught.
However, those that are fed up with insane public policy, gathering together, say, at a mall, then being tracked by these license plate finders. So, now we have license plates. We have times that a set of plates are together. We know a couple of people we want to keep an eye on with license plates X, Y, and Z. Looky looky, these people are at Mall A at the same time... hopefully the slippery slope is a little more obvious.
Yes, we have to assume that we are being tracked. Yes, we have to assume all these things can and will be monitored. "To what end?" Is the question. "Find my car" is the end? Probably not, but maybe.
And, how many times have you done that 'action' and felt like a smuck once you've realized how much of your life has just been wasted? If addiction and gamification is required to make you do something, I worry about important things being done that aren't gamified.
Everybody enjoys fun things, and making dull things fun has been around since the beginning of recorded history. Ever heard the phrase "Life is a Game"?
This term is as useful as a punch to the groin. See what I did there? I made writing, and I maybe reading, a bit more fun. I wonder how many I's I can use in a sentence? See, I did it again. Fun!
This whole concept makes me afraid of business latching on to this stupid idea and causing a crap load of problems. Partly because of the work that is never fun, thus never gets done. Or the work that gets barely done because it is not fun enough. Or just simply people who won't learn how to do something new, because someone else hasn't made a game out if it yet (i.e.never will).
This is a terrible idea to push, let alone adopt. It might have its place it limited settings, like for 7 year olds in school, like, for every book you read you get 5 points. Oh ya, I did that when I was a kid. I recall that I could care less about the points, but I did want to read more books than Danny. Funny.
Just last year my family had to go through my fathers collection of stuff. There were 10s of thousands of books, magazines, etc. None of them were deemed worth keeping and my father was upset at this notion (understandably).
Here's why we chucked them: 1) nobody had space to keep these. 2) libraries are not interested in old books. 3) nobody was willing to spend their meagre vacation sorting through the pile. Keep in mind if you could go through 100 a day, it would still take 100s of days 4) nobody looked at these books for 40 years, why start now? 5) they were covered in dust, spider webs, and whatnot.
I personally think a computer system is a much more reliable way to keep and use books (aside from the altering bit). Here's my simplistic reasoning
1) a working computer can hold so very many books - even the smallest laptop or ebook device 2) a hard drive can last a decade easily enough. 3) backing up a hard drive takes minutes to hours (just considering books here) - and put onto a CD/DVD (or set) 4) nearly anybody can store it - warmish, dry place is all it takes 5) I can search 6) I can browse 7) I can readily share them
Libraries are increasingly irrelevant - although they can become public/community meeting places, like a Library Club House, dropping the Library bit.
The last time I was in a library was about 5 years ago... and they didn't have the book I wanted to look at anyway. And at that time, I bought a better one online and waited a week. An ebook would have suited me fine too.
Slashdot Mirror
Could this be the year of the flying car?
I couldn't agree more. This proposal is the most ridiculous idea I've ever imagined coming from Oregon.
I can think of 4 stupid laws/proposals that would make more sense.
1) tax vehicles by weight via insurance premiums
2) raise taxes at the pump to compensate
3) raise income taxes
4) tax families with more than 1 car
and just a throw in, expand the MAX in Portland out to Vancouver WA
Punishing those who are trying to be better for the environment seems so absurd it must be coming from someone on crack.
Arguably, the legions of Mormons knocking on doors do more damage than anything Scientology does. Then there's Jehovah's Witness which are in the same damaged goods camp.
Not a Mormon, I grew up with plenty around. They have mind boggling beliefs and are decidedly self interested and encourage exclusionary practices. There is little difference between Mormonism and Scientology. Both wrote a book to follow. Both are insidious. Both make ridiculous claims.
Arguing that one is 'better' than another is like arguing which shit does more good instead of which shit is stinkier.
If you have ever flown, you've been on board a plane with dozens of cell phones that have -not- been turned off, electronics in luggage that haven't been turned off, an the list goes on -- on every flight for the last 20 years, and probably much more.
Stupid regulations are stupid. If you really spend more that a second actually thinking about it, aircraft would be dropping out of the sky every second because of electronic interference. And if electronic interference caused problems like that, we'd be really wondering what kind of lame ass testing they do with their electronics on their plane. No shielding, open air, hand soldered, flimsy electronics, usually put together by a high-school-enthusiast-intern. It would be dropping like paper each time radar shined on them.
Other places have done it. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7334372.stm
human brain simulation mostly be like this:
'what am I going to wear to the party?'
'I hope they like me.'
'Is someone hearing my thoughts?'
'who did this to me?'
That was the tech of the last century. Unfortunately, the off-hours have proven to be too costly, especially when they get injured or need time off.
Sorry, our common sense is copyrighted and only available in Canada. For more information about Common Sense international availability, please contact our lawyers. They will be watching you carefully for any infringement, intentional or accidental.
First Post?
This may be one more step towards a replicator.
Also, I think we could use the sun to help out http://www.kidstatic.com/2011/06/solar-3d-printer-egyptian-desert-as-materials/ - wouldn't this be a similar idea?
However, we're driving the car now. And heading into the cliff wall with it.
The problem isn't the car, it's the number of people - as population grows WE all suffer.
i.e less people, less power required, less agriculture, less environmental stresses. The opposite is basically true too.
Everyone who has, or has had multiple children are the root multiplier of the problems we are facing today. To blame any single technology as the problem is disingenuous.
Perhaps this is something you're looking for:
https://github.com/SoftwareMaven/DeDuper
google: github deduper
I sense sarcasm... and good point. No idea is perfect for every situation.
After thinking about it a bit, it might just be a nice way to update the bios on 100s of servers.
suppose this:
You have 100s of extra USB keys (say colored blue), then update the bios on all of them the same way on your secure workstation. Spot test a few (or all of them) independently, and then walk through your server farm swapping the keys (old ones, black, with new ones, blue). Perhaps it can be hot-swapped - less server down-time.
Since your requirements would be frequent bios updates because your server hardware changes all the time, perhaps there could be convenient accessible spot for the usb key for bios updates, or a single shared usb bios slot for a rack (some sort of auto-detect usb multiswitch comes to mind).
Let your imagination go wild!
Along the same logic, I would argue, why do we need to have the bios have built in writable flash memory these days? So many simple options to solve this come to mind, but if I really wanted to update the bois - which is incredibly rare - couldn't we be a little more hands on and use a USB key for example?
here's a possible solution:
- I could pull out a small USB drive/key from the special slot on the mobo
- stick it into my USB slot on a running computer
- write a new bios to it with my fancy updater tool - simple so far
- stick it back into the mobo (it could even lock in with a clip for those who vibrate a lot)
- (re)boot
- new bios is read from the -special- USB.
bonuses:
- if something goes wrong - place in a new different USB drive/key
- test with a different USB drive/key to see if the update is better, then update the special one
- I can think of others too!
what I mean by "special USB", is that it is only accessed and read by a booting bios, so doesn't have pass through or presence to the OS. It may be especially small.
I seem to remember somewhere that we don't really need much of a BIOS since the kernels do all the probing for themselves a second time anyway, so in many respects we have 2 boots, once (slowly) in BIOS, which is promptly thrown away, and another in whatever OS you might load.
I couldn't agree more!
Comic book characters are yawn. Snores!
I have no interest in Avengers, Batman, nor Spiderman -- DC or Marvel, whatever -- they aren't sparking anything in me. Finding a movie that's interesting and that plays in a theater is getting harder and harder, especially when the good ones fly through in a single weekend making it sometimes near impossible to see. Marginally good ones aren't around much at all, making it so disappointing to find something entertaining.
TV isn't much better for selection, I guess that means I'm getting old, or movies are becoming something of a past art form... but there is a ton of crap throughout the history of it.
I'm going to go read a book with... paper pages.
Groovy is OK. Your suspicions are correct. Debugging it is sometimes worse than pure Java because you really don't know where it actually broke. If we are talking about web development, then probably looking at Grails - which doesn't run the same on development as in deployment. On top of that, It makes assumptions that I don't like. It does have some nice features nevertheless.
This idea of owning has been bugging me for a while, and I'm coming to the conclusion that it does't matter: i.e. 'own' vs 'rent'. The difference is rather semantic and maybe the problem down to the core. I'm stepping rather out of scope here, but it is similar to the idea of discovering vs inventing. Perhaps a little humility is in dire need. This blade cuts both ways. If all things are 'rented' then we can say that corporations, governments, or individuals have no rights to anything. Perhaps our laws should reflect that idea more.
It is a nice thought that I 'own' something - anything even - but really, I'm even renting this body for a few decades or whatever. Soon enough, it will belong to no one. Owning software is more fleeting, and in many cases, it is a use once, and discard. Most games, movies and TV shows are obviously like that. The fact that we could buy some media on a CD, DVD, or a book, for example, is really about a convenient way to access the content therein, but we never 'own' the content, at least I don't claim 'that song is mine' or 'that story is mine'. We barely own the media since it is slowly degraded over time to uselessness.
Even when I buy a house, and then later sell it, it is pretty equivalent to renting it too. I think it is especially easy to see the similariities if I've a mortgage on it. i.e. the 'bank' owns it and I'm paying them to stay there. I may make a few dollars back on my sale... maybe. But usually, I'm just in a different house with another mortgage. i.e. rent.
When I die... I personally lose it all. gone.
I think you hit the issue with the restrictive terms. This is a problem that is not easy to overcome. Owning is not really the important thing, and it might actually be more important to consider it always a rental. But not having access due to some restrictive terms, like you live in Mexico, or Canada, so no access to your software, would the serious detrimental problem. That's when you want to have software installed vs streamed -- and not DRM locked so when you cross a border (virtual or not) you lose access to stuff you normally have access to use.
If I could reply to both of you I would...
Run -- if only to fail.
To try, and then lose, is far better than not trying.
But if you both win, you will be doing your country a service - you'll get a great pension - and you'll make a difference. Hopefully a positive one.
It's not that hard either.
To be a State Representative:
-must be 25 years of age at the time of the election
-reside in the state that you represent
-citizen for 7 years
-win election
To be a Senator
-must be 30 years or older at time of election
-citizen for 9 years
-reside in the state you are running in
Then the State requirements to be placed on the ballot apparently vary, but it seems that it is something like, the candidate gather 500 signatures.
really?
I have no idea when any business opens or closes anymore without consulting every business's website. Truly there is no real consistency. Sure you can guess that most every business opens by 10am and close after 4pm, but I'm surprised how often I'm wrong about each one too! I have to admit that stores in malls tend to keep similar hours, but that isn't 100% either.
So many business open anywhere from 7:30am to 10am in my area, and I find that if I drop by thinking some business must be open, I'm often foolishly waiting for yet another 15 minutes, or coming back another day kicking myself that I didn't check *before* I left.
The other trouble is days. open monday-saturday, tuesday-sunday, tuesday-saturday, closed wednesday, or the worst being monday-friday. And the infamous, gone fishing! If the idea of someone setting their business hours to different times bothers you, you need help.
I know at my job that really, any time period would be ok. There needs to be some overlap with various positions, but that's about it. There is no real business hours to speak of. Meetings with people are agreed upon and set.
I also am quite aware that many management folk think their workers are doing nothing if they don't see them working. Classic micro-managing style.
lesson partially learned
The people that made the internet viable early on were people who both understood what the network could provide and wanted it.
Those of us who spent our nights dialing between BBSes and trading phone numbers were waiting in the shadows for something more connected. Once the internet became more available (i.e. not just military or universities) climbed on board as soon as we could. It is this kind of group that made the network valuable. This Viewtron system was very closed and controlled. As a user you had access to commercial stuff, but nothing shared between users other than email. The one major thing it missed was porn -- 20/20.
Otherwise it is a barely usable brick targeted to people who don't care anyway. It's a certain flop. No surprise.
It is interesting how forward thinking it was though. 15000 people is quite a few, but only 1/1000th of what was needed to recover costs.
After quickly reading the report, it seems that pedestrians are more likely to be hit when a hybrid is going very slow, like when turning a corner in a low speed area. The blanket solution is to have EV making sound all the time, which to me is ridiculous. However, maybe it is worth emitting sound when the brake is freshly released and the EV is speeding up. Maybe a pedestrian can be alerted to the fact that the previously stopped EV is not stopped anymore and should start running for their lives!
Needless to say, a fast running car makes tons of sound from it's tires and other crap -- EV or not. A stopped EV is much like a parked car, and it might be worth knowing it has started to roll from a pedestrian/cyclist point of view. The recommendations just show a lack of imagination, really. The recommendation could easily have been that everyone must always have loud music playing while driving. That would also be sufficient. Pump up the Volume
I was always under the impression that the 68k vs 8086 architecture produced far less heat for the same throughput.
If that was true then, and is still true, then current processors could be consuming less power under a different architecture and doing the same work. Given that my cell phone's ARM chip is more powerful than my old PC, and heats up far less no matter how much I gab on it might give some credence to the concept.
The same type of scenario could easily happen over an entire city once this technology becomes common enough. Pretty soon there's enough coverage that law enforcement (or anyone else, for that matter) might be able to pay for (or coerce via legislation) private owners to give them access to the data. Now "criminals" can be caught by simply driving past that Chevron station on the corner and detailed data mining of your personal travel habits is effortless and completely legal. The entire vehicle-owning public is suddenly under constant, real-time surveillance.
I think that it is better to refer to "dissidents" rather than "criminals" in conversations like this one. Everyone gets bent up on the fact that someone is breaking a reasonable law, and being labelled a criminal. No one cares if a criminal, in the sanest sense, is caught.
However, those that are fed up with insane public policy, gathering together, say, at a mall, then being tracked by these license plate finders. So, now we have license plates. We have times that a set of plates are together. We know a couple of people we want to keep an eye on with license plates X, Y, and Z. Looky looky, these people are at Mall A at the same time... hopefully the slippery slope is a little more obvious.
Yes, we have to assume that we are being tracked. Yes, we have to assume all these things can and will be monitored. "To what end?" Is the question. "Find my car" is the end? Probably not, but maybe.
why a cable? and why hdmi?
I do some of this now with flingo.org for video - and the reading crap on my laptop..
Which makes it more horrible IMO
And, how many times have you done that 'action' and felt like a smuck once you've realized how much of your life has just been wasted? If addiction and gamification is required to make you do something, I worry about important things being done that aren't gamified.
I'm all for making things fun, musical stairs
But does my next pay day get determined by how many bugs I fix, or how many hours I stay at work in 'overtime'? I certainly hope not!
Everybody enjoys fun things, and making dull things fun has been around since the beginning of recorded history. Ever heard the phrase "Life is a Game"?
This term is as useful as a punch to the groin. See what I did there? I made writing, and I maybe reading, a bit more fun. I wonder how many I's I can use in a sentence? See, I did it again. Fun!
This whole concept makes me afraid of business latching on to this stupid idea and causing a crap load of problems. Partly because of the work that is never fun, thus never gets done. Or the work that gets barely done because it is not fun enough. Or just simply people who won't learn how to do something new, because someone else hasn't made a game out if it yet (i.e.never will).
This is a terrible idea to push, let alone adopt. It might have its place it limited settings, like for 7 year olds in school, like, for every book you read you get 5 points. Oh ya, I did that when I was a kid. I recall that I could care less about the points, but I did want to read more books than Danny. Funny.
Just last year my family had to go through my fathers collection of stuff. There were 10s of thousands of books, magazines, etc. None of them were deemed worth keeping and my father was upset at this notion (understandably).
Here's why we chucked them:
1) nobody had space to keep these.
2) libraries are not interested in old books.
3) nobody was willing to spend their meagre vacation sorting through the pile. Keep in mind if you could go through 100 a day, it would still take 100s of days
4) nobody looked at these books for 40 years, why start now?
5) they were covered in dust, spider webs, and whatnot.
I personally think a computer system is a much more reliable way to keep and use books (aside from the altering bit). Here's my simplistic reasoning
1) a working computer can hold so very many books - even the smallest laptop or ebook device
2) a hard drive can last a decade easily enough.
3) backing up a hard drive takes minutes to hours (just considering books here) - and put onto a CD/DVD (or set)
4) nearly anybody can store it - warmish, dry place is all it takes
5) I can search
6) I can browse
7) I can readily share them
Libraries are increasingly irrelevant - although they can become public/community meeting places, like a Library Club House, dropping the Library bit.
The last time I was in a library was about 5 years ago... and they didn't have the book I wanted to look at anyway. And at that time, I bought a better one online and waited a week. An ebook would have suited me fine too.