It also fails to recognise that a society that evolves around Segways wouldn't have more than one type, just as societies evolved around bicycles also have cargo and cab variants and addons.
(The first Segway was a wheelchair, so it's not like you can't have variants.)
Yes, irrational reasons like... rain. Or passengers. Or payload. Or personal security. Or range. Or speed.
No. Just two reasons. 1) Price. 2) Size.
They are too expensive for most people, and they are too bulky and awkward, relative to their usefulness. If they were more useful (like the car), we'd accept the size and cost (like the car). They need to be vastly cheaper, and either more compact or more useful for the size.
It's a shame, because the actual self-balancing mechanism is pretty awesome.
Oculus Rift plus forward facing cameras, so you never have to take them off, with a Leap controller for mid-air and any-surface input. Add a micro-projector for communicating with the surrounding the norms.
While this version isn't subtle enough, I could imagine a better version of this projector replacing all lighting if technology advances in the right way. Pseudo-holographic lighting. Subtly change the "flavour" of the room, give the best lighting for specific objects without affecting the rest of the room, and without having something as obvious as spot-lights/highlights/downlights. Or dramatically change the apparent wall and furniture patterns/textures.
[TFA showed hints with the projection-lighting on the background/furniture around the TV reflecting the type of colours of the thing being watched (rather than just projecting an image extension of the screen.) Exaggerating the colours for cartoons, smoky grey affect when watching black and white, etc.]
This is why you automate it. So you can blind the drone's camera, but be far enough away from the site when the missiles hit. With the right cammo, the detector is only visible when it fires the laser, which it doesn't do unless it hears a drone. Passive surveillance/active response system for asymmetrical warfare.
Except for when you're there in person. Then his information does not flow freely.
Freetards have never had a problem paying for labour, at the time. They just don't believe that you should have to pay the plumber a royalty every time you flush.
Paying for a concert is fine. Paying for a recording of a concert, that the person who made the recording is happy to share, is what they dislike.
Fine, the ship's computer of the first IAU survey ship to arrive in-system gets to assign it a name from the next entry on its IAU approved names list. Better?
No, they are saying, "You know, Toots, you'd be quite attractive... if you lost a little weight."
It's an early public salvo in the negotiations with Microsoft over the unit price of Win8-for-Atom.
(Similar thing happened after Vista, with netbook makers chosing Linux. Microsoft responded with the cheap Win7 Starter Edition, and Linux fell off the netbook market. I'd expect something similar here. And government departments have floated the idea of a major open-source roll-out, immediately getting a lower price offer from Microsoft. The benefit of locking in the market outweighs the cost of offering an occasional below-cost loss leader.)
Come out with a 3D food printer, on the other hand, that will probably sell.;)
There are 3d food printers. However, they are limited to single materials they can extrude (icing is popular, I think some cake shops use 3d icing printers).
And that, I suspect, is the real limitation. Consumer-level 3d printers are not "replicators". They are rapid prototyping units for making crude plastic models. Very few people need to make enough crude plastic models to justify buying and learning to use a 3d printer. Same reason most people aren't going to buy an arduino kit instead of a mass produced piece of cheap electronics.
When you can buy something that produces (and recycles) mixed metal/plastic/etc pieces from online catalogues at a push of a button, then it'll be revolutionary.
(Or yes, when a food printer can create multiple food stuffs, even just the processed foods, rather than just a single ingredient, then you will see massive sales. Hell, look at the sales of bread makers, icecream makers, popcorn cookers, I doubt the 3d food printer would have to do too make foods to find a market. Just more than icing.)
So, how do we compensate artist without DRM? And compensation does matter. I have seen both Peter Jackson's The Hobbit
What an interesting choice of example. Did you know that Peter Jackson (and the Tolkien estate) had to sue the production company (New Line) for millions of dollars in unpaid royalties because New Line claimed that the Lord of the Rings trilogy made no money? This is a) in spite of the trilogy grossing over a billion dollars, and b) both Jackson and the Tolkien estate being smart enough to insist on royalties on gross revenue (and merch) in their contracts.
DRM doesn't seem to have done much to help the artists, does it?
(Indeed, the only reason New Line settled as quickly as they did (after about two years) was because LoTR made them so much money they were salivating over the prospects of making The Hobbit and needed to get Jackson and the Tolkien family back on side.)
Your comment (and that of the submitting OP) is predicated on the assumption that DRM works. And that without DRM, artists wouldn't get paid.
If, otoh, you accept that DRM is almost always broken, you realise that the situation we have now is the already same as the one without DRM... with one major difference: legitimate customers get inconvenienced by DRM, illegal downloaders are not in any way bothered by it.
In which case, the argument is: "If we harass our paying customers, treat them like criminals, we will stop piracy and make more money." Expressed in those terms, surely you see the flaw in the argument?
[And this ignores more practical counter-argument: where the distributors that obsess the most about DRM and fighting teh pirates seem to be the distributors that have the worst reputation for ripping of their artists, such as creating phony company structures in order to avoid paying the royalties that they've agreed to pay. (See: Hollywood Accounting. When a method of fraud is named after your industry, your industry has lost the high moral ground.)]
Most "pranks" just seem to be forms of bullying. They only work because there's an asymmetrical power relationship, those in a position of power "pranking" those in a position of weakness.
[I saw this illustrated in Punk'd. The crew tried to prank Ashton Kutcher himself. He responded by "pretending" to throw a tantrum and fire the crew involved. Then "ha ha, only joking" revealed that he knew he'd been set up and was just turning the tables... However, what I saw (both in the reactions of the crew, and in Kutcher's braying "ha ha! I am the master! You don't Punk me, I Punk you!") was a thin-skinned bully demonstrating his power over those weaker than him. He showed them that he could, in fact, destroy their livelihoods if he chose to, and they continue purely because he decided to be a "good sport".
By contrast, while I's not a fan of Jackass, it does seem like they have a culture where they genuinely mutually prank each other; however painful/violent the pranks, it's not coming from the more powerful against the weaker. The dwarf is just as likely to do something to the star as the reverse, and the reaction of the rest of the crew (including the star) is of appreciation of the prank. 180 degrees from Kutcher's reaction.]
Preemptively killing any potential rivals that have reached a stage that they (the aliens) recognise as being just a few hundred years away from developing FTL (or whatever allowed their own expansion).
(Don't worry, there won't be a war. They'll just stand off at the edge of the solar system and fire relativistic masses at us. One hit, one kill. Pretty much any technology that allows interstellar travel can be used to kill a planet.)
Perhaps you can point out where in the ADVERTISING that it said (before the AG pursued this case) that the installment plan would be terminated with the balance immediately due should you cease using t-mobile's phone service.
The claim is deception. The burden of proof is on the claimant. Can you show where the advertising created a reasonable expectation (the test for deception is reasonableness) that the balance for the handset wouldn't become due if a person took out an instalment plan then cancelled service?
The point of contention seems to be the immediate full payment for the handset on termination of service. As someone who went through the process, were you aware of that condition (not just buried in the fine print), and do you feel that a reasonable person would have a reasonable expectation that the handset micro-loan would continue past the termination of the service. Ie, did the puffery you encountered before signing the contract make you (or a reasonable person) think that.
It seems the difference is that other major carriers charge the same amount whether you take the subsidised handset contract or not. Their "no contract" rate is the same (or higher) than their contract rate with free handset. T-Mobile separated the two. You have a rate for service, no matter where your handset comes from, or you can choose to buy a subsidised handset on a separate contract, with extra repayments and special provisions for cancellation.
You might wish they offered the handset-subsidy as a zero-interest micro-loan with no balloon payments regardless of whether you use their cell-service, but the question is whether it is "reasonable" for you to expect them to do so based on their advertising -- whether a "reasonable person" (ie, a person of average intelligence, education and experience, and not a lawyer, specialist, or moron) would gain that expectation from their ads. And I think any "reasonable person" would expect that the handset-subsidy would have additional conditions that the BYOD service doesn't.
Now if, when you sign up for a subsidised handset, those extra conditions deliberately buried - or sales staff deliberately mislead customers about those terms - then yes, that is misleading. But that's a different issue, and doesn't appear to be what the AG is poncing on about.
Frankly, what T-mobile is doing is what the entire industry should be required to do. Service should be separate from subsidy. Prices should be transparent and unambiguous. If, in addition, a company wants to offer zero-interest micro-loans, hey go nuts.
then scalpers would stop doing this and ticket sales would go back to reflecting the actual demand for the event.
Ticket sales shouldn't reflect actual demand. Use an auction system so the price reflects real demand. Scalping is a sign your price is too low, cancelling due to lack of sales is a sign your price is too high. But using an auction system solves both problems, and ensures both that the price reflects the actual demand and that the house is always full.
That way, you don't have to introduce retarded and unnecessary restrictions on ticket buyers, such as preventing resale or creating laws against scalpers. It may mean that resellers will have to sell for less than they paid, which is perfectly reasonable for a genuine reseller (someone whose circumstances changed and can no longer attend, so wants to recover at least some of the cost.) That would be your test, if shows are sold out at auction-close, but resold tickets are selling for less than the auction price, the system works.
Won't happen. However much they whine about it, marketers like the artificial urgency, the hype of "sold out" shows and ten-times-over-cost scalping, it is what allows them to charge so much in the first place.
but please don't trample those footprints. I may want to gaze on them myself some day.
Thermal cycling in the top two inches of regolith means that the footprints are likely already softened to mere depressions, and by the time you get there, they won't be recognisable. Sorry. But the hardware should be good for a few thousand years, decals will be bleached white or irradiated black, but it'll take a long time for micro-meteorites to erode the big pieces down to something unrecognisable to even an amateur visitor. Of course, we'll need to return the ascent modules first or the tourists will be inevitably disappointed. At that point, they'll probably also be "maintaining" the footprints every decade or so, so you may get your wish.
Einstein's family were able to introduce him to talented mentors when he was young, and most of the schools he attended recognised and encouraged his genius. For example, when he failed the entrance exam for the Swiss Polytechnic, their principal sponsored his entrance to an advanced school to finish his secondary education, where he lived with the family of one of his professors. The only struggle he seemed to have was getting a teaching position for two years after graduation from the Polytech (his patent office years.)
Why not move Metro onto/into the desktop? Vista/Win7 already has "widgets" on the desktop (that nobody uses.) This would be a way on re-introducing it in a more robust form. Taskbar (and Start button) would still be there. And people would be more gently introduced to the Metro-UI. By Win9 they can start weaning users off the taskbar, if they are determined to go in that direction.
But what they have now is two entirely different UI's crudely bolted together. As if someone decided at the last minute to bolt the RT interface onto the desktop version, but didn't really think it through.
If they did, they fucked up by not including a link to their own site at the mention of the product name: "the new high resolution E-ink screen on the Kobo Aura HD". (Even TFA links only to its own in-house review of the Aura, not to Kobo's site.)
Slashdot Mirror
wouldn't/would
It also fails to recognise that a society that evolves around Segways wouldn't have more than one type, just as societies evolved around bicycles also have cargo and cab variants and addons.
(The first Segway was a wheelchair, so it's not like you can't have variants.)
Yes, irrational reasons like ... rain. Or passengers. Or payload. Or personal security. Or range. Or speed.
No. Just two reasons. 1) Price. 2) Size.
They are too expensive for most people, and they are too bulky and awkward, relative to their usefulness. If they were more useful (like the car), we'd accept the size and cost (like the car). They need to be vastly cheaper, and either more compact or more useful for the size.
It's a shame, because the actual self-balancing mechanism is pretty awesome.
Bah! I say, not nerdy enough.
Oculus Rift plus forward facing cameras, so you never have to take them off, with a Leap controller for mid-air and any-surface input. Add a micro-projector for communicating with the surrounding the norms.
While this version isn't subtle enough, I could imagine a better version of this projector replacing all lighting if technology advances in the right way. Pseudo-holographic lighting. Subtly change the "flavour" of the room, give the best lighting for specific objects without affecting the rest of the room, and without having something as obvious as spot-lights/highlights/downlights. Or dramatically change the apparent wall and furniture patterns/textures.
[TFA showed hints with the projection-lighting on the background/furniture around the TV reflecting the type of colours of the thing being watched (rather than just projecting an image extension of the screen.) Exaggerating the colours for cartoons, smoky grey affect when watching black and white, etc.]
This is why you automate it. So you can blind the drone's camera, but be far enough away from the site when the missiles hit. With the right cammo, the detector is only visible when it fires the laser, which it doesn't do unless it hears a drone. Passive surveillance/active response system for asymmetrical warfare.
Except for when you're there in person. Then his information does not flow freely.
Freetards have never had a problem paying for labour, at the time. They just don't believe that you should have to pay the plumber a royalty every time you flush.
Paying for a concert is fine. Paying for a recording of a concert, that the person who made the recording is happy to share, is what they dislike.
"First star to the right and straight on till morning."
Fine, the ship's computer of the first IAU survey ship to arrive in-system gets to assign it a name from the next entry on its IAU approved names list. Better?
No, they are saying, "You know, Toots, you'd be quite attractive... if you lost a little weight."
It's an early public salvo in the negotiations with Microsoft over the unit price of Win8-for-Atom.
(Similar thing happened after Vista, with netbook makers chosing Linux. Microsoft responded with the cheap Win7 Starter Edition, and Linux fell off the netbook market. I'd expect something similar here. And government departments have floated the idea of a major open-source roll-out, immediately getting a lower price offer from Microsoft. The benefit of locking in the market outweighs the cost of offering an occasional below-cost loss leader.)
Come out with a 3D food printer, on the other hand, that will probably sell. ;)
There are 3d food printers. However, they are limited to single materials they can extrude (icing is popular, I think some cake shops use 3d icing printers).
And that, I suspect, is the real limitation. Consumer-level 3d printers are not "replicators". They are rapid prototyping units for making crude plastic models. Very few people need to make enough crude plastic models to justify buying and learning to use a 3d printer. Same reason most people aren't going to buy an arduino kit instead of a mass produced piece of cheap electronics.
When you can buy something that produces (and recycles) mixed metal/plastic/etc pieces from online catalogues at a push of a button, then it'll be revolutionary.
(Or yes, when a food printer can create multiple food stuffs, even just the processed foods, rather than just a single ingredient, then you will see massive sales. Hell, look at the sales of bread makers, icecream makers, popcorn cookers, I doubt the 3d food printer would have to do too make foods to find a market. Just more than icing.)
So, how do we compensate artist without DRM? And compensation does matter. I have seen both Peter Jackson's The Hobbit
What an interesting choice of example. Did you know that Peter Jackson (and the Tolkien estate) had to sue the production company (New Line) for millions of dollars in unpaid royalties because New Line claimed that the Lord of the Rings trilogy made no money? This is a) in spite of the trilogy grossing over a billion dollars, and b) both Jackson and the Tolkien estate being smart enough to insist on royalties on gross revenue (and merch) in their contracts.
DRM doesn't seem to have done much to help the artists, does it?
(Indeed, the only reason New Line settled as quickly as they did (after about two years) was because LoTR made them so much money they were salivating over the prospects of making The Hobbit and needed to get Jackson and the Tolkien family back on side.)
Your comment (and that of the submitting OP) is predicated on the assumption that DRM works. And that without DRM, artists wouldn't get paid.
If, otoh, you accept that DRM is almost always broken, you realise that the situation we have now is the already same as the one without DRM... with one major difference: legitimate customers get inconvenienced by DRM, illegal downloaders are not in any way bothered by it.
In which case, the argument is: "If we harass our paying customers, treat them like criminals, we will stop piracy and make more money." Expressed in those terms, surely you see the flaw in the argument?
[And this ignores more practical counter-argument: where the distributors that obsess the most about DRM and fighting teh pirates seem to be the distributors that have the worst reputation for ripping of their artists, such as creating phony company structures in order to avoid paying the royalties that they've agreed to pay. (See: Hollywood Accounting. When a method of fraud is named after your industry, your industry has lost the high moral ground.)]
Most "pranks" just seem to be forms of bullying. They only work because there's an asymmetrical power relationship, those in a position of power "pranking" those in a position of weakness.
[I saw this illustrated in Punk'd. The crew tried to prank Ashton Kutcher himself. He responded by "pretending" to throw a tantrum and fire the crew involved. Then "ha ha, only joking" revealed that he knew he'd been set up and was just turning the tables... However, what I saw (both in the reactions of the crew, and in Kutcher's braying "ha ha! I am the master! You don't Punk me, I Punk you!") was a thin-skinned bully demonstrating his power over those weaker than him. He showed them that he could, in fact, destroy their livelihoods if he chose to, and they continue purely because he decided to be a "good sport".
By contrast, while I's not a fan of Jackass, it does seem like they have a culture where they genuinely mutually prank each other; however painful/violent the pranks, it's not coming from the more powerful against the weaker. The dwarf is just as likely to do something to the star as the reverse, and the reaction of the rest of the crew (including the star) is of appreciation of the prank. 180 degrees from Kutcher's reaction.]
Preemptively killing any potential rivals that have reached a stage that they (the aliens) recognise as being just a few hundred years away from developing FTL (or whatever allowed their own expansion).
(Don't worry, there won't be a war. They'll just stand off at the edge of the solar system and fire relativistic masses at us. One hit, one kill. Pretty much any technology that allows interstellar travel can be used to kill a planet.)
I mean, yes, ok, you could call it deceptive the way they set up the contract,
You could, but you'd be lying.
Perhaps you can point out where in the ADVERTISING that it said (before the AG pursued this case) that the installment plan would be terminated with the balance immediately due should you cease using t-mobile's phone service.
The claim is deception. The burden of proof is on the claimant. Can you show where the advertising created a reasonable expectation (the test for deception is reasonableness) that the balance for the handset wouldn't become due if a person took out an instalment plan then cancelled service?
The point of contention seems to be the immediate full payment for the handset on termination of service. As someone who went through the process, were you aware of that condition (not just buried in the fine print), and do you feel that a reasonable person would have a reasonable expectation that the handset micro-loan would continue past the termination of the service. Ie, did the puffery you encountered before signing the contract make you (or a reasonable person) think that.
It seems the difference is that other major carriers charge the same amount whether you take the subsidised handset contract or not. Their "no contract" rate is the same (or higher) than their contract rate with free handset. T-Mobile separated the two. You have a rate for service, no matter where your handset comes from, or you can choose to buy a subsidised handset on a separate contract, with extra repayments and special provisions for cancellation.
You might wish they offered the handset-subsidy as a zero-interest micro-loan with no balloon payments regardless of whether you use their cell-service, but the question is whether it is "reasonable" for you to expect them to do so based on their advertising -- whether a "reasonable person" (ie, a person of average intelligence, education and experience, and not a lawyer, specialist, or moron) would gain that expectation from their ads. And I think any "reasonable person" would expect that the handset-subsidy would have additional conditions that the BYOD service doesn't.
Now if, when you sign up for a subsidised handset, those extra conditions deliberately buried - or sales staff deliberately mislead customers about those terms - then yes, that is misleading. But that's a different issue, and doesn't appear to be what the AG is poncing on about.
Frankly, what T-mobile is doing is what the entire industry should be required to do. Service should be separate from subsidy. Prices should be transparent and unambiguous. If, in addition, a company wants to offer zero-interest micro-loans, hey go nuts.
then scalpers would stop doing this and ticket sales would go back to reflecting the actual demand for the event.
Ticket sales shouldn't reflect actual demand. Use an auction system so the price reflects real demand. Scalping is a sign your price is too low, cancelling due to lack of sales is a sign your price is too high. But using an auction system solves both problems, and ensures both that the price reflects the actual demand and that the house is always full.
That way, you don't have to introduce retarded and unnecessary restrictions on ticket buyers, such as preventing resale or creating laws against scalpers. It may mean that resellers will have to sell for less than they paid, which is perfectly reasonable for a genuine reseller (someone whose circumstances changed and can no longer attend, so wants to recover at least some of the cost.) That would be your test, if shows are sold out at auction-close, but resold tickets are selling for less than the auction price, the system works.
Won't happen. However much they whine about it, marketers like the artificial urgency, the hype of "sold out" shows and ten-times-over-cost scalping, it is what allows them to charge so much in the first place.
Flying car.
but please don't trample those footprints. I may want to gaze on them myself some day.
Thermal cycling in the top two inches of regolith means that the footprints are likely already softened to mere depressions, and by the time you get there, they won't be recognisable. Sorry. But the hardware should be good for a few thousand years, decals will be bleached white or irradiated black, but it'll take a long time for micro-meteorites to erode the big pieces down to something unrecognisable to even an amateur visitor. Of course, we'll need to return the ascent modules first or the tourists will be inevitably disappointed. At that point, they'll probably also be "maintaining" the footprints every decade or so, so you may get your wish.
Pauling yes, Einstein no.
Einstein's family were able to introduce him to talented mentors when he was young, and most of the schools he attended recognised and encouraged his genius. For example, when he failed the entrance exam for the Swiss Polytechnic, their principal sponsored his entrance to an advanced school to finish his secondary education, where he lived with the family of one of his professors. The only struggle he seemed to have was getting a teaching position for two years after graduation from the Polytech (his patent office years.)
Why not move Metro onto/into the desktop? Vista/Win7 already has "widgets" on the desktop (that nobody uses.) This would be a way on re-introducing it in a more robust form. Taskbar (and Start button) would still be there. And people would be more gently introduced to the Metro-UI. By Win9 they can start weaning users off the taskbar, if they are determined to go in that direction.
But what they have now is two entirely different UI's crudely bolted together. As if someone decided at the last minute to bolt the RT interface onto the desktop version, but didn't really think it through.
If they did, they fucked up by not including a link to their own site at the mention of the product name: "the new high resolution E-ink screen on the Kobo Aura HD". (Even TFA links only to its own in-house review of the Aura, not to Kobo's site.)