Quite the opposite. Cartels are illegal in many parts of the world. You may be confused by the existence of OPEC. OPEC is a cartel of nations, and therefore not subject to antitrust laws.
The term oligopoly usually means there is are few competitors due to a high barrier of entry, such as massive networks for telecoms, or complicated products that require massive research and development as in the automotive industry.
I think you are thinking of tacit collusion, which is a symptom of an oligopoly. We have to ask, is their collusion intentional, or not?
Methane has an atmospheric half-life of about 7 years (turning into CO2 and water)...So, per-volume, methane is worse, but what's gonna get us is the CO2 because that hangs around much longer and has the positive feedback.
CO2 and water vapor (yes, water vapor) are the two most important greenhouse gasses. Methane is so bad for global warming because it becomes both. If the stuff is going into the atmosphere anyway, we might as well get some power out of it.
Yeesh. Linking to an article on a gambling web site that is completely relevant to the story, and you call that irresponsible?
It's not my fault I'm behind a Websense gateway. Many people that read Slashdot are. The OP is irresponsible, or perhaps a better word is inconsiderate, for not keeping that in mind.
I rolled over the link to see what it was. My finger must have twitched or something (too much coffee?). There was an interesting moment of panic once I realized what I had done.
Slashdot is usually a little more responsible than that.
Since it appears we aren't flaming right now. I don't think GWB is getting more reasonable as his term winds down, I think he has always had his moments of sound and reasonable thinking. Namely, his tax cuts/economic stimulus plans during times of recession and the concept of free trade are straight out of economics textbooks. He runs into trouble with his deficit spending during times of economic expansion.
Exactly, the only reason the carriers are concerned is because they want to charge money for using these features. What they need to realize is that it's a simple supply and demand problem. These features are not necessities, and there are plenty of substitutes. Therefore, the demand for them is relatively elastic. A shiny new user interface won't change a thing.
How does one coordinate a government this big? I guarantee there are multiple government agencies working on the same projects, while some projects get left behind because no single agency has enough resources to perform it. Here's a list of agencies involved with environmental science. Some of those agencies have to overlap. I'm sure the ATF, FBI, DEA, Secret Service, and U.S. Marshals cross paths quite a bit.
Yes, Microsoft was likely forced to do so because of the many lawsuits that were brought against them for bundling software. It would be a huge disadvantage for them to leave this software out, as it only increases the chances of the user downloading a competing product. Why should people go download Windows Mail over Thunderbird?
I just installed a new converter box at for my grandmother a few weeks back. She lives out in the sticks and has always had trouble with getting good television reception. Before the transition, CBS affiliate in our area always had terrible reception. It didn't even come in well for people in the city. After I installed the converter box, the CBS affiliate was perfectly clear. The NBC affiliate, which was the clearest signal on analog, didn't come in at all. All of the other channels came in just fine.
Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference. And unlike the satellite stuff, the local stuff is only being obtained from a single source.
I think a lot of the problems with satellite reception come from the directionality of the dish, the frequency in which it's broadcast, and the fact that the transmitter is up in the sky and not down on the ground (relatively). This causes satellite signals to have problems with objects between the transmitter and receiver while terrestrial broadcasts have the benefit of the signal propagating in all different directions as well as the ability to pass through objects.
"In trials using 140 volunteers those told to act suspicious were detected with 'about 78% accuracy on mal-intent detection, and 80% on deception,' says a DHS spokesman."
None of that matters - what's important is the false positive rate, ie. the proportion of people with no malicious intent who get flagged up. If it's as high as 1% the system will be pretty much unworkable.
Exactly, the NewScientist article fails to mention false positives. However, the attached PDF goes into it in great detail. I don't have time to read 274 pages though.
Even if this new technique is only intended to help law enforcement determine which individuals to pay extra close attention too, it will inevitably be abused much like Tasers are today.
What makes this "tool" completely useless is the fact that it can be tricked by individuals acting suspicious but not actually committing a crime. This tells me that this device is weak to attacks that involve misdirection.
Thank you, that was both informative and insightful. I always had a suspicion what that article stated was true, but I never had the numbers to back it up.
It seems the game is to tell the American people that they will reduce the size of government, and instead, increase its size, run a deficit and lower taxes. When the American taxpayer sees a lower bill, he/she thinks the administration made good on their promise.
How in God's name is an association of TV station titles to markets in which they can be received copyrightable?
TFA is vague. Information about the call sign, location, frequency, and parent company are all in the public domain as they are published by the FCC. However, Nielsen complies market data about the location. The most important of which is an estimate of the number of possible viewers. Each city is ranked by the number of possible viewers. At the top of the list is obviously New York, NY followed by Los Angeles, CA on down. However, stations transmit with different amounts of power. A 1000 watt station will reach far fewer people than a 50,000 watt station. Nielsen goes through considerable effort to estimate the potential audience for each station, and charges for the data. This data is data is very valuable to those in broadcasting and advertising. Wikipedia was giving it away for free.
My father was in advertising, and he always spoke, as if it were a rule, that you NEVER respond to criticism in an advertisement, only assert your strengths. The fact that Microsoft feels cornered like this speaks volumes. While they're still the 800lb gorilla, they perceive Apple as a real threat now.
If I hadn't seen the Mac commercials, I would say these were excellent. Having seen the Mac commercials, I think Microsoft's new motto should be:
Microsoft, we take our competitors' ideas and pass them off as our own. Even their commercials!
By responding to Apple's commercial, they are only acknowledging Apple's success. They need to get the same message across but without the "I'm a PC" line.
Personally, I have found that the best advertising strategy is a great product. If you have a great product, all you have to do is make the public aware of it.
Hi, I'm Mark Shuttleworth, and I'm here to tell you that your computing options are not limited to Mac and Windows. My Ubuntu Linux is faster and more secure than either of them. Best of all, it's free. To find out more, go to Ubuntu.com.
Whenever I meet a college freshman who tells me they are a premed major, I ask them, "Why don't you major in biomedical engineering? That way, if you don't get into medical school, you will still have a wonderful career in medicine."
They always respond with, "because it's too hard."
I respond with, "If you think that's too hard, you won't make it through premed."
They always change majors after their first semester. Usually to finance.
I too am a fan of Qtstalker. It's a great tool, but I wish there was more of a community for it. It's a good tool that could become an excellent tool with more community involvement.
I have tried and it's very difficult. The media pays no attention to the state legislature. It's like they don't even exist.
Therefore, everyone turns to the federal government to solve their problems.
Not enough cops on your street? Washington needs to pass that crime bill!
The schools suck in my area. We need No Child Left Behind!
These are local problems. The need to be solved by state and local government!
Yeah, the commerce clause has done some terrible things, but it's done some good too. We wouldn't have our interstate highway system without it.
The real offender is the 16th amendment. It basically let's the federal government say to the states, "Do what we say, or we won't give you your money back."
Slashdot Mirror
Cartels are a legal version of it.
Quite the opposite. Cartels are illegal in many parts of the world. You may be confused by the existence of OPEC. OPEC is a cartel of nations, and therefore not subject to antitrust laws.
The term oligopoly usually means there is are few competitors due to a high barrier of entry, such as massive networks for telecoms, or complicated products that require massive research and development as in the automotive industry.
I think you are thinking of tacit collusion, which is a symptom of an oligopoly. We have to ask, is their collusion intentional, or not?
I think the "balls" tag sums it up pretty well.
I wonder if the same technology can be adapted to make hedge funds invisible.
Methane has an atmospheric half-life of about 7 years (turning into CO2 and water)...So, per-volume, methane is worse, but what's gonna get us is the CO2 because that hangs around much longer and has the positive feedback.
CO2 and water vapor (yes, water vapor) are the two most important greenhouse gasses. Methane is so bad for global warming because it becomes both. If the stuff is going into the atmosphere anyway, we might as well get some power out of it.
Yeesh. Linking to an article on a gambling web site that is completely relevant to the story, and you call that irresponsible?
It's not my fault I'm behind a Websense gateway. Many people that read Slashdot are. The OP is irresponsible, or perhaps a better word is inconsiderate, for not keeping that in mind.
Why did you click on it?
I rolled over the link to see what it was. My finger must have twitched or something (too much coffee?). There was an interesting moment of panic once I realized what I had done.
Slashdot is usually a little more responsible than that.
Websense blocks it.
[sarcasm] for posting a link to gambling911 in the article. Not like anyone reads Slashdot at work or anything. [/sarcasm]
Since it appears we aren't flaming right now. I don't think GWB is getting more reasonable as his term winds down, I think he has always had his moments of sound and reasonable thinking. Namely, his tax cuts/economic stimulus plans during times of recession and the concept of free trade are straight out of economics textbooks. He runs into trouble with his deficit spending during times of economic expansion.
Exactly, the only reason the carriers are concerned is because they want to charge money for using these features. What they need to realize is that it's a simple supply and demand problem. These features are not necessities, and there are plenty of substitutes. Therefore, the demand for them is relatively elastic. A shiny new user interface won't change a thing.
(1)The expansion of human knowledge of the Earth and of phenomena in the atmosphere and space;
Still, NASA should be launching the satellites that collect the data. NOAA should be crunching the numbers.
This only reaffirms my belief that there needs to be a massive restructuring of our government. There are 16 intelligence agencies. 16! How does the Director of National Intelligence keep track of it all?
How does one coordinate a government this big? I guarantee there are multiple government agencies working on the same projects, while some projects get left behind because no single agency has enough resources to perform it. Here's a list of agencies involved with environmental science. Some of those agencies have to overlap. I'm sure the ATF, FBI, DEA, Secret Service, and U.S. Marshals cross paths quite a bit.
What frustrates me the most is when somebody in government realizes this, but instead of fixing it, they create another government agency to make it worse.
Yes, Microsoft was likely forced to do so because of the many lawsuits that were brought against them for bundling software. It would be a huge disadvantage for them to leave this software out, as it only increases the chances of the user downloading a competing product. Why should people go download Windows Mail over Thunderbird?
I just installed a new converter box at for my grandmother a few weeks back. She lives out in the sticks and has always had trouble with getting good television reception. Before the transition, CBS affiliate in our area always had terrible reception. It didn't even come in well for people in the city. After I installed the converter box, the CBS affiliate was perfectly clear. The NBC affiliate, which was the clearest signal on analog, didn't come in at all. All of the other channels came in just fine.
Given how touchy satellite service is in even the slightest amount of rain, I can only imagine just how touchy some the local stuff will become to any form of interference. And unlike the satellite stuff, the local stuff is only being obtained from a single source.
I think a lot of the problems with satellite reception come from the directionality of the dish, the frequency in which it's broadcast, and the fact that the transmitter is up in the sky and not down on the ground (relatively). This causes satellite signals to have problems with objects between the transmitter and receiver while terrestrial broadcasts have the benefit of the signal propagating in all different directions as well as the ability to pass through objects.
Hey, I'm no electrical engineer.
Nowhere in the universe that is observable to us can you go and observe beyond 13.7 billion light years.
What if that's a wrong assumption. What if the object is older than 13.7 billion years just "dark matter" that we can't observe directly?
I think I just broke my brain.
None of that matters - what's important is the false positive rate, ie. the proportion of people with no malicious intent who get flagged up. If it's as high as 1% the system will be pretty much unworkable.
Exactly, the NewScientist article fails to mention false positives. However, the attached PDF goes into it in great detail. I don't have time to read 274 pages though.
Even if this new technique is only intended to help law enforcement determine which individuals to pay extra close attention too, it will inevitably be abused much like Tasers are today. What makes this "tool" completely useless is the fact that it can be tricked by individuals acting suspicious but not actually committing a crime. This tells me that this device is weak to attacks that involve misdirection.
Thank you, that was both informative and insightful. I always had a suspicion what that article stated was true, but I never had the numbers to back it up.
It seems the game is to tell the American people that they will reduce the size of government, and instead, increase its size, run a deficit and lower taxes. When the American taxpayer sees a lower bill, he/she thinks the administration made good on their promise.
How in God's name is an association of TV station titles to markets in which they can be received copyrightable?
TFA is vague. Information about the call sign, location, frequency, and parent company are all in the public domain as they are published by the FCC. However, Nielsen complies market data about the location. The most important of which is an estimate of the number of possible viewers. Each city is ranked by the number of possible viewers. At the top of the list is obviously New York, NY followed by Los Angeles, CA on down. However, stations transmit with different amounts of power. A 1000 watt station will reach far fewer people than a 50,000 watt station. Nielsen goes through considerable effort to estimate the potential audience for each station, and charges for the data. This data is data is very valuable to those in broadcasting and advertising. Wikipedia was giving it away for free.
or a crapload of greenhouses? I bet plants could use that co2.
Like this?
otherwise Linux would always be viewed sceptically for it's need of illegal software. My only question is, how much will it cost?
My father was in advertising, and he always spoke, as if it were a rule, that you NEVER respond to criticism in an advertisement, only assert your strengths. The fact that Microsoft feels cornered like this speaks volumes. While they're still the 800lb gorilla, they perceive Apple as a real threat now.
If I hadn't seen the Mac commercials, I would say these were excellent. Having seen the Mac commercials, I think Microsoft's new motto should be:
By responding to Apple's commercial, they are only acknowledging Apple's success. They need to get the same message across but without the "I'm a PC" line.
Personally, I have found that the best advertising strategy is a great product. If you have a great product, all you have to do is make the public aware of it.
Whenever I meet a college freshman who tells me they are a premed major, I ask them, "Why don't you major in biomedical engineering? That way, if you don't get into medical school, you will still have a wonderful career in medicine."
They always respond with, "because it's too hard."
I respond with, "If you think that's too hard, you won't make it through premed."
They always change majors after their first semester. Usually to finance.
I too am a fan of Qtstalker. It's a great tool, but I wish there was more of a community for it. It's a good tool that could become an excellent tool with more community involvement.
Have you looked at your state legislature lately?
I have tried and it's very difficult. The media pays no attention to the state legislature. It's like they don't even exist. Therefore, everyone turns to the federal government to solve their problems.
Not enough cops on your street? Washington needs to pass that crime bill!
The schools suck in my area. We need No Child Left Behind!
These are local problems. The need to be solved by state and local government!
Yeah, the commerce clause has done some terrible things, but it's done some good too. We wouldn't have our interstate highway system without it.
The real offender is the 16th amendment. It basically let's the federal government say to the states, "Do what we say, or we won't give you your money back."