"Why shouldn't those who use a public facility more be also forced to pay more?"
Careful with that argument; its a slippery slope. You can make the same argument about public schools.
But all that aside, a gasoline tax does accomplish what you're suggesting:
1) The more you travel, the more gas you burn, the more you pay 2) It accomplishes what I think is a good social goal, and that is, the less efficient your transport, the more you're taxed 3) It's easy to administer. It requires no contact with the "end user", you simply count the gas as its put into the tank and tax it. 4) There is no ability to governments to track my movements. The government has no power nor reason to track my movements.
GPS on the other hand will be technically complex, easy to circumvent, a nightmare to administer (I can see armies of 1,000's set up to administer), has huge privacy implications and in the end will not raise any more money than could be accomplished by:
*DRUM ROLL*
Raising the gas tax.
When you think of it though, I think they're trying to do two things: 1) Tax us twice for travel... once for the gas, and again for miles travelled. 2) As is usual for large governments, they want the ability to track people easily.
Both of these are BAD GOALS. I can't believe people will support this.
"You don't think mp3 encoding and LZW compression qualifies as innovation?"
Not really. Sony and Phillips had ATRAC in their minidisc and Phillips had PASC in the DCC back in 1992 which are precisely the nature of MP3 (lossy music compression that throws away the part of music that people can't hear in complex passages).
The only difference is that Franhauffer was smart enough to distribute command line MP3 converters in the mid-nineties and look the other way when people included it in non-profit software, whereas Sony and Phillips locked their stuff down tight and to this day won't release them to the public to use.
Here's something else to consider. If the patent system in the late 80's was as screwed up as it is today, there would be no MP3, as Sony and/or Phillips would have patented the idea of psychoacoustic lossy compression and we'd all be using ATRAC and the MP3 revolution would have never happened. As it was, they had to patent an implementation of it, not the idea of it.
Let's face it. The system is broken, everybody knows it, the big companies just like it because it lets them lock down huge portions of the technical universe and not have any competition. Its essentially locking the world into keritsu's where only huge companies have the resources to play, because they've been smart enough to get the patent laws tilted in their favor.
" I suspect this may be because they didn't want to put bigger tables into the engine computer."
More likely, it had to do with the type of tires on the car. Each tire rating has an absolute speed limit at which it is considered safe to drive. I'd be surprised if an SUV had Z rated tires. Well, maybe the Porsche/VW and BMW.
If you take what I and my employer put into social security and then run the numbers (the magic of compound interest), I should have at least $1M in the bank when I retire.
So people always claim its a good deal because I'll probably get 1/3th that, and technically less, because I can't get a lump-sum payoff, *AND* I have to pay taxes on money that I've already paid taxes on. Wonderful.
We'd be better off if you forced people to contribute to their own savings account, same percent as we pay now, and then when we retire, take a flat 10% of the balance to pay for all the widows and orphans. They'd have more money and I'd have more money.
when almost 14% of my salary is paid into social security, and then I get a measly benefit back, that isn't exactly welfare for me.
If that's welfare, let me keep my 14% and they won't have to pay me anything when I retire. That way you can knock me off the welfare rolls in advance.
I think there are companies that essentially assume the debt of rebate and then make money on not paying them.
What I mean is, if you are "SuperComputerManufacturer" and offer a rebate of $10 on 1 million items, you now have a liability of $10M dollars.
I think that companies will then bid on the debt to pay the rebate. In otherwords, they'll bid an asking price of $9M. Therefore the manfacturer gets out of $10M of debt for $9M, and the rebate company makes $???? money by assuing they'll only get x% of the rebates properly cashed. So every rebate they deny is essentially their money.
It really makes perfect sense (although this is pure supposition).
And if this turns out to be viable business model, I own the patent.
"If it's got a price that's significantly better than B&H's, it's probably a scam."
Not always. I've gotten some great deals from two places...
Buydig Dell
Yes, Dell.... but only certain times of year when Dell will run online coupons for x% off cameras and accessories. You'll typically get stuff well below prices you can get anywhere in the world. I've been waiting for another sale, because the new Canon 24-105L lens.
But your basic point is correct. B&H is the benchmark for online photo places, although I prefer to do business with Amazon.
"The shared source license is not even close to equivalent to source escrow."
So has Diebold, or NC, or anybody from the government gone to MS and said "If you want to be used in election machines, we need to escrow the source code". I'll bet no one has asked yet.
Put the ball in MS's court. Let *them* make the decision, not Diebold.
Microsoft is fully willing to disclose source code when it is important to them. Seems to me that holding Windows Source code in escrow isn't that hard.
Moreover, I'll bet Microsoft maintains programmer logs in its CVS...er... Visual Sourcesafe library so they know who coded everything.
Has Diebold even asked MS?
Lets not confuse the issue; Windows isn't the issue -- What Diebold puts on their kiosks is the issue. Period.
I wonder if the artists will be "charged" for recalling their CD's and reissuing them... that would be sadly funny. Maybe it would make a few of these artists strike out on their own.
The net effect of this proposal is that it would require the ISP to essentially do content filtering. Since even a passing knowledge of the internet shows that you can't legislate this solution worldwide, it effectively forces the ISP to monitor compliance with the "porn port". It can't work any other way.
And once you do that, the slippery slope is the ISP becomes more than just a provider of bandwidth. Either criminal or civil lawsuits would force each of the ISPs to monitor what goes on each port....and of course once you do that, its an easy leap to say "well, you already monitor for porn, you should also monitor for copyright violations, slander, libel, and unamerican activities".
Lets assume you're right (and I have no reason to think otherwise), isn't this massive overkill?
I realize they want to prevent piracy, and that's something that should take seriously. But at a certain point, I'm asking why this much trouble? Modding a console is so outside the mainstream that the amount of piracy they're preventing has to be really small.
Is this corporate machismo? Is this MS's platform to prove the viability of the TPC? Or is there more to this than meets the eye? I'm confused at the level of effort here.
I'm comparing it to the PC's of the time, and I confused things by pointing out that the other consoles exceeded the PS2's graphics ability
It was at best equal to state of the art PC graphics cards, which means that Sony was pretty much on the same technology curve as ATI and nVidia. What that really means is Sony doesn't have any special ability to make graphics chips, which may explain why Microsoft and Nintendo just buy stuff from ATI or nVidia... the stuff is just as good and you don't try to do things that aren't a core strength.
So my contention is that the PS3 will have nice graphics. Just like the Xbox 360, and just like the new Nintendo. But probably not equal to high-end consumer PC graphics cards.
"They are putting technology into their console that hasn't even hit the consumer market yet"
Sony said that about the PS2 when it came out (the emotion engine), and yet their graphics are the same as the Gamecube and Xbox. I realize they like to hype their console like the hardware is special; remember the story about how Iraq was using them as a supercomputer?
But looking back at the PS2 a few years later, its pretty clear that the console was good enough, but hardly ground breaking.
I understand what you're saying and to a certain extent I agree.
But give how common these problems are, doesn't it strike you as odd? This is almost like there was no testing at all, which doesn't make sense. The developers surely would have caught these weeks, if not months ago.
Sony has had problems with the PS2... the first batch had a significant amount of CD/DVD drive failures; I had one, but sony eventually replaced it for free.
In fact, there has been a class action over the issue:
While Pilgrims are sometimes described as Calvinists, the Puritans are more likely what you're thinking of when you're describing radical Calvinists. The only thing most Calvinists have in common at their core is predestination.
Keep in mine that Presbyterianism is a form of Calvinism, and unlike modern Christian Fundmantalism, it is avidly concerned with social justice, including support of people and causes that most people would consider "leftist" (which ironically, is true of most "reformed" churches that have links to Calvinism).
I've heard that some fundamentalists don't consider Reformed churces to be "real" Christian because they aren't radically socially conservative, but that's hearsay.
Slashdot Mirror
"Why shouldn't those who use a public facility more be also forced to pay more?"
Careful with that argument; its a slippery slope. You can make the same argument about public schools.
But all that aside, a gasoline tax does accomplish what you're suggesting:
1) The more you travel, the more gas you burn, the more you pay
2) It accomplishes what I think is a good social goal, and that is, the less efficient your transport, the more you're taxed
3) It's easy to administer. It requires no contact with the "end user", you simply count the gas as its put into the tank and tax it.
4) There is no ability to governments to track my movements. The government has no power nor reason to track my movements.
GPS on the other hand will be technically complex, easy to circumvent, a nightmare to administer (I can see armies of 1,000's set up to administer), has huge privacy implications and in the end will not raise any more money than could be accomplished by:
*DRUM ROLL*
Raising the gas tax.
When you think of it though, I think they're trying to do two things:
1) Tax us twice for travel... once for the gas, and again for miles travelled.
2) As is usual for large governments, they want the ability to track people easily.
Both of these are BAD GOALS. I can't believe people will support this.
"You don't think mp3 encoding and LZW compression qualifies as innovation?"
Not really. Sony and Phillips had ATRAC in their minidisc and Phillips had PASC in the DCC back in 1992 which are precisely the nature of MP3 (lossy music compression that throws away the part of music that people can't hear in complex passages).
The only difference is that Franhauffer was smart enough to distribute command line MP3 converters in the mid-nineties and look the other way when people included it in non-profit software, whereas Sony and Phillips locked their stuff down tight and to this day won't release them to the public to use.
Here's something else to consider. If the patent system in the late 80's was as screwed up as it is today, there would be no MP3, as Sony and/or Phillips would have patented the idea of psychoacoustic lossy compression and we'd all be using ATRAC and the MP3 revolution would have never happened. As it was, they had to patent an implementation of it, not the idea of it.
Let's face it. The system is broken, everybody knows it, the big companies just like it because it lets them lock down huge portions of the technical universe and not have any competition. Its essentially locking the world into keritsu's where only huge companies have the resources to play, because they've been smart enough to get the patent laws tilted in their favor.
" I suspect this may be because they didn't want to put bigger tables into the engine computer."
More likely, it had to do with the type of tires on the car. Each tire rating has an absolute speed limit at which it is considered safe to drive. I'd be surprised if an SUV had Z rated tires. Well, maybe the Porsche/VW and BMW.
Firefox can offer them 10% of their gross browser price to pay Eolas. Maybe offer 15% if they won't budge.
If you take what I and my employer put into social security and then run the numbers (the magic of compound interest), I should have at least $1M in the bank when I retire.
So people always claim its a good deal because I'll probably get 1/3th that, and technically less, because I can't get a lump-sum payoff, *AND* I have to pay taxes on money that I've already paid taxes on. Wonderful.
We'd be better off if you forced people to contribute to their own savings account, same percent as we pay now, and then when we retire, take a flat 10% of the balance to pay for all the widows and orphans. They'd have more money and I'd have more money.
And I wasn't trolling with my original post .
Gift cards are a terrible gift. Think about it. You give a friend a $25 gift card to "Best City", a local big-box electronics chain.
So you're saying "I'm giving you cash, but I've decided what store you can spend it in". Gee, thanks. Just give me cash.
Its pretty obvious why retailers like you to prespend your money with them. But why do consumers like them? It's puzzling.
when almost 14% of my salary is paid into social security, and then I get a measly benefit back, that isn't exactly welfare for me.
If that's welfare, let me keep my 14% and they won't have to pay me anything when I retire. That way you can knock me off the welfare rolls in advance.
I think there are companies that essentially assume the debt of rebate and then make money on not paying them.
What I mean is, if you are "SuperComputerManufacturer" and offer a rebate of $10 on 1 million items, you now have a liability of $10M dollars.
I think that companies will then bid on the debt to pay the rebate. In otherwords, they'll bid an asking price of $9M. Therefore the manfacturer gets out of $10M of debt for $9M, and the rebate company makes $???? money by assuing they'll only get x% of the rebates properly cashed. So every rebate they deny is essentially their money.
It really makes perfect sense (although this is pure supposition).
And if this turns out to be viable business model, I own the patent.
Amex was doing this a while back, but I don't think they do anymore.
Who else does this?
"If it's got a price that's significantly better than B&H's, it's probably a scam."
Not always. I've gotten some great deals from two places...
Buydig
Dell
Yes, Dell.... but only certain times of year when Dell will run online coupons for x% off cameras and accessories. You'll typically get stuff well below prices you can get anywhere in the world. I've been waiting for another sale, because the new Canon 24-105L lens.
But your basic point is correct. B&H is the benchmark for online photo places, although I prefer to do business with Amazon.
"The shared source license is not even close to equivalent to source escrow."
So has Diebold, or NC, or anybody from the government gone to MS and said "If you want to be used in election machines, we need to escrow the source code". I'll bet no one has asked yet.
Put the ball in MS's court. Let *them* make the decision, not Diebold.
People are talking around here like the source code to Windows is the Holy Grail of computing.
0 5240.html
It isn't.
If you look here:
http://www.windowsfordevices.com/articles/AT27502
Microsoft is fully willing to disclose source code when it is important to them. Seems to me that holding Windows Source code in escrow isn't that hard.
Moreover, I'll bet Microsoft maintains programmer logs in its CVS...er... Visual Sourcesafe library so they know who coded everything.
Has Diebold even asked MS?
Lets not confuse the issue; Windows isn't the issue -- What Diebold puts on their kiosks is the issue. Period.
I thought of that...
but would you be willing to swear under threat of perjury that it's accurate?
I wonder if the artists will be "charged" for recalling their CD's and reissuing them... that would be sadly funny. Maybe it would make a few of these artists strike out on their own.
The net effect of this proposal is that it would require the ISP to essentially do content filtering. Since even a passing knowledge of the internet shows that you can't legislate this solution worldwide, it effectively forces the ISP to monitor compliance with the "porn port". It can't work any other way.
...and of course once you do that, its an easy leap to say "well, you already monitor for porn, you should also monitor for copyright violations, slander, libel, and unamerican activities".
And once you do that, the slippery slope is the ISP becomes more than just a provider of bandwidth. Either criminal or civil lawsuits would force each of the ISPs to monitor what goes on each port.
What a slippery slope.
Lets assume you're right (and I have no reason to think otherwise), isn't this massive overkill?
I realize they want to prevent piracy, and that's something that should take seriously. But at a certain point, I'm asking why this much trouble? Modding a console is so outside the mainstream that the amount of piracy they're preventing has to be really small.
Is this corporate machismo? Is this MS's platform to prove the viability of the TPC? Or is there more to this than meets the eye? I'm confused at the level of effort here.
I'm comparing it to the PC's of the time, and I confused things by pointing out that the other consoles exceeded the PS2's graphics ability
It was at best equal to state of the art PC graphics cards, which means that Sony was pretty much on the same technology curve as ATI and nVidia. What that really means is Sony doesn't have any special ability to make graphics chips, which may explain why Microsoft and Nintendo just buy stuff from ATI or nVidia... the stuff is just as good and you don't try to do things that aren't a core strength.
So my contention is that the PS3 will have nice graphics. Just like the Xbox 360, and just like the new Nintendo. But probably not equal to high-end consumer PC graphics cards.
"They are putting technology into their console that hasn't even hit the consumer market yet"
Sony said that about the PS2 when it came out (the emotion engine), and yet their graphics are the same as the Gamecube and Xbox. I realize they like to hype their console like the hardware is special; remember the story about how Iraq was using them as a supercomputer?
But looking back at the PS2 a few years later, its pretty clear that the console was good enough, but hardly ground breaking.
I understand what you're saying and to a certain extent I agree.
But give how common these problems are, doesn't it strike you as odd? This is almost like there was no testing at all, which doesn't make sense. The developers surely would have caught these weeks, if not months ago.
Sony has had problems with the PS2... the first batch had a significant amount of CD/DVD drive failures; I had one, but sony eventually replaced it for free.
In fact, there has been a class action over the issue:
http://www.ps2settlement.com/
While Pilgrims are sometimes described as Calvinists, the Puritans are more likely what you're thinking of when you're describing radical Calvinists. The only thing most Calvinists have in common at their core is predestination.
Keep in mine that Presbyterianism is a form of Calvinism, and unlike modern Christian Fundmantalism, it is avidly concerned with social justice, including support of people and causes that most people would consider "leftist" (which ironically, is true of most "reformed" churches that have links to Calvinism).
I've heard that some fundamentalists don't consider Reformed churces to be "real" Christian because they aren't radically socially conservative, but that's hearsay.
"Sony would have been better served to just sell out F4I and claim innocence"
;-)
Maybe F4I kept good records
"He's saying that many companies use copyright protection, and that this software will sometimes result in system instabilities."
Software companies? Like what? Virtually all protection these days is a serial validated with a web lookup.
Can anybody think of copy protection on software that basically takes over the machine?
"Has anybody out there *ever* gotten an Intel chip that matched the sticker on the outside of the box when they bought the whole thing ready-made?"
Yes, from Dell, several times in fact.
The context was "general media center". As far as I know, neither Xbox nor Playstation has much presence in that market, but maybe I'm wrong?