Can we please get some sane leaders to acknowledge the obvious fact: it costs the media companies something, but nowhere near what they claim? That it's bad enough that it should stay illegal, but not so bad that people's lives should be ruined over half a dozen songs? Why does everything need to be black and white?
But perhaps it doesn't need to stay illegal, even if a particular industry has lost business. Should we criminalise a large percentage of society to protect what is actually a very very small part of the economy?
Society is changing. It changed when copyright was introduced, it changed when recorded music was invented. Now it's changing again thanks to downloads. Maybe we won't see the highly produced music, blockbuster films, triple-A games, etc, that we're used to. And maybe that sucks. But we coped with previous changes without our entire culture curling up in a ball and dying, there's no reason why we can't adapt to the end of the copyright industry.
So why is this one particular industry deserving of more protection and preservation than we've offered to other dying industries?
It sounds like this would be an irresistible target for someone with a boat or a plane packed with explosives. Sadly, that's the type of world we live in.
No it isn't. There are cruise ships of various sizes that would make terrific terrorist targets, along with oil tankers, and my personal favourite, LNG tankers. How many of those are hit with boats or planes packed with explosives each year, in the entire world? Now how many are hit within 50nm of a US port?
Piracy is vastly more common than terrorism. And that is rare along the US coast.
1/2/3 is an abbreviation of paragraphs beginning Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly. Since no additive function is possible, item-1 plus item-2 doesn't produce item-3, there's no Zerothly.
Did you realise that the Chinese idea has exactly the same flaw, except the second track with the shuttle is elevated above the mainline. If there's a delay at the station it doesn't sync with the high-speed train, if there's a delay at the undocking, it flies off the end of the elevated track.
IMO, the best variant of this idea would be to have personal pods that attach to HST. (Indeed, the HST would be little more than a base and an engine.) You're not waiting for people to move from one carriage to another, you're not waiting for doors to clear so that you can separate. And since the personal pods travel directly from point-to-point (from your point of view), it eliminates much of the inconvenience of mass transit, while retaining the efficiency advantage.
(Of course, once you've gone that far, you might as well go for a semi-evacuated tube systems. You don't even need the main HST, the personal pods slot in and out of tubes like data packets in a switching line.)
The problem with that first design is that really just turned your muscles "on or off". No matter how slight the movement. Apparently it was extremely tiring to use even briefly.
This appears to have a subtle control that would allow a paraplegic to use a robo-leg controller all day without tiring any more than you or I.
If that doesn't work, go to their offices and switch off the main power panel a few times until they get the hint.
No, buy a strong (rare earth) magnet and use it to stop their meter. (Or some other tampering device, depending on the age of the meter.)
Then when the meter reader comes out and reports power-theft, they'll be trying to explain to the power-company (or courts) how a vandal broke into their meterbox in order to help them lower their power bills.
A stupid petition, on a par with the legalise marijuana petitions. A) it's too absolute, software patents will never be abolished, B) it's not within the power of the Executive, and he won't expend political capital in a hostile Congress on a guaranteed fail (see A), and C) since they've already dismissed it, it just reads like a spoiled whine, hence you exclude 99% of potential supporters.
Try something more moderate and deliverable:
(wepetitiontheobamaadministrationto:) "<title>Use the wisdom of the crowds to assist the Patent Office.</title>
<body>Many patents refer to ideas which are already in use. They are often identified online as "prior art" even before being granted. As the public cannot challenge a patent application, these contributions are lost. The Obama Administration should instruct the USPTO to create a public, wiki-style, database of all new patent applications and recruit these online volunteers to document prior art, and other problems, and have the USPTO instruct its examiners to take this resource into account when assessing new patents. Such a resource can also be used aid smaller inventors.
The Administration should then work with Congress to allow the USPTO to reassess previously granted patents that would not be granted today, rather than requiring expensive court action by involved parties, for each and every patent. Again, crowd sourcing will assist immensely in reducing the workload and cost of such a reform.</body>"
It's modest, appeals to Obama's public-access vibe (like the whole petition thing), while hinting at a general dissatisfaction with the pace of patent reform (without being a shouty dickhead about it), and suggesting a "next step".
The shuttle? The US space shuttle? Which couldn't be launched in late December because the computer couldn't cope with year end roll over? Because the programmers didn't think the shuttle would ever be in orbit over the New Year? Seriously? A problem that existed since Mercury, was repeated on the shuttle and wasn't fixed until 2007? That's your standard of excellence?
MSNBC"The shuttle computers were never envisioned to fly through a year-end changeover"
Wikipedia"Historically, the Shuttle was not launched if its flight would run from December to January (a year-end rollover or YERO). Its flight software, designed in the 1970s, was not designed for this, and would require the orbiter's computers be reset through a change of year, which could cause a glitch while in orbit. In 2007, NASA engineers devised a solution so Shuttle flights could cross the year-end boundary"
But don't store the actual password file in the deposit box. Instead leave the first clues in a series of increasingly difficult puzzles, the solution to each one will provide one password, which will unlock a system that will reveal something necessary to solve the next puzzle.
I have to assume you have no real idea what benefits there are to a manual transmission
Chill dude, you'll give yourself an ulcer. I wasn't advocating anything. I was just explaining the economics of why manuals are more expensive for car companies to produce, in spite of being mechanically simpler, and thus why you're seeing less of them offered.
"And cars have been designed to accommodate both an automatic and a manual since"
Right, and the manual was the mass produced base model, while the automatic was the expensive luxury model. The auto was the "modified" version, hence more expensive, hence reserved for the luxury or executive version.
Now the automatic is the base model, and the luxury and sport models have dual-clutch semi-autos. So for the manual, they need to produce an entirely unique production line, with little product overlap, for an entirely different non-luxury model, for a shrinking market which can't be advertised to.
And as dual-clutch autos increasingly filter down to the base model in more and more brands, do you expect to see more manuals?
You're also modifying the car/cabin itself to fit the linkages and physical requirements of the extra peddle and conventional gear-stick. Essentially the manual version is more like a modified custom car (much more so that the "sports" model, which probably sells in higher numbers anyway.)
And it will only get worse. Like I said, it is probably already cheaper and easier to fit a fake third pedal that to do all the redesign necessary for a real clutch and manual gearbox.
Nowadays, we pay a premium for the old-fashioned gearbox, which I (as a gearhead) find particularly odd and disturbing...
Why "odd"? If I make 100,000 cars of a model type. 85,000 regular automaticss. 10,000 luxury automatics, with pseudo-manual "Tiptronic". 3,000 sports models, also with pseudo-manual. And 2,000 conventional manuals. Why would you expect a system developed solely for a 2,000-car range to be cheaper than one developed for a 70,000-car range?
I suspect, eventually, it will be cheaper to put a drive-by-wire pretend clutch-pedal connected to that pseudo-manual automatic, rather than develop a real manual gearbox and clutch for the handful of people who insist on a third pedal.
Slashdot Mirror
The hypocracy being, the protesters sitting in the public parks, parks paid for with taxpayer money
Zuccotti Park is privately owned. That's why it was chosen, it wasn't subject to NYC's public park curfew laws.
Yes, but did she look like
According to Google image search, a young Jodi Foster.
Theme
It's disturbing when the scammers have better customer service than the actual phone company.
Can we please get some sane leaders to acknowledge the obvious fact: it costs the media companies something, but nowhere near what they claim? That it's bad enough that it should stay illegal, but not so bad that people's lives should be ruined over half a dozen songs? Why does everything need to be black and white?
But perhaps it doesn't need to stay illegal, even if a particular industry has lost business. Should we criminalise a large percentage of society to protect what is actually a very very small part of the economy?
Society is changing. It changed when copyright was introduced, it changed when recorded music was invented. Now it's changing again thanks to downloads. Maybe we won't see the highly produced music, blockbuster films, triple-A games, etc, that we're used to. And maybe that sucks. But we coped with previous changes without our entire culture curling up in a ball and dying, there's no reason why we can't adapt to the end of the copyright industry.
So why is this one particular industry deserving of more protection and preservation than we've offered to other dying industries?
It was a futurama reference. As was the post before it. Your post... sickens me.
...it'll cost you fiddy gees.
"just bury the option to switch somewhere that only the old power users will find and you're fine."
Seriously? You didn't see the wave of outrage over the default tabs on top?
(If you don't use FF, it's reversed forever by right-clicking on a blank part of any toolbar and unticking "Tabs on Top". Real Power User stuff.)
It sounds like this would be an irresistible target for someone with a boat or a plane packed with explosives. Sadly, that's the type of world we live in.
No it isn't. There are cruise ships of various sizes that would make terrific terrorist targets, along with oil tankers, and my personal favourite, LNG tankers. How many of those are hit with boats or planes packed with explosives each year, in the entire world? Now how many are hit within 50nm of a US port?
Piracy is vastly more common than terrorism. And that is rare along the US coast.
1/2/3 is an abbreviation of paragraphs beginning Firstly, Secondly, Thirdly. Since no additive function is possible, item-1 plus item-2 doesn't produce item-3, there's no Zerothly.
Did you realise that the Chinese idea has exactly the same flaw, except the second track with the shuttle is elevated above the mainline. If there's a delay at the station it doesn't sync with the high-speed train, if there's a delay at the undocking, it flies off the end of the elevated track.
IMO, the best variant of this idea would be to have personal pods that attach to HST. (Indeed, the HST would be little more than a base and an engine.) You're not waiting for people to move from one carriage to another, you're not waiting for doors to clear so that you can separate. And since the personal pods travel directly from point-to-point (from your point of view), it eliminates much of the inconvenience of mass transit, while retaining the efficiency advantage.
(Of course, once you've gone that far, you might as well go for a semi-evacuated tube systems. You don't even need the main HST, the personal pods slot in and out of tubes like data packets in a switching line.)
The problem with that first design is that really just turned your muscles "on or off". No matter how slight the movement. Apparently it was extremely tiring to use even briefly.
This appears to have a subtle control that would allow a paraplegic to use a robo-leg controller all day without tiring any more than you or I.
If that doesn't work, go to their offices and switch off the main power panel a few times until they get the hint.
No, buy a strong (rare earth) magnet and use it to stop their meter. (Or some other tampering device, depending on the age of the meter.)
Then when the meter reader comes out and reports power-theft, they'll be trying to explain to the power-company (or courts) how a vandal broke into their meterbox in order to help them lower their power bills.
A stupid petition, on a par with the legalise marijuana petitions. A) it's too absolute, software patents will never be abolished, B) it's not within the power of the Executive, and he won't expend political capital in a hostile Congress on a guaranteed fail (see A), and C) since they've already dismissed it, it just reads like a spoiled whine, hence you exclude 99% of potential supporters.
Try something more moderate and deliverable:
(wepetitiontheobamaadministrationto:) "<title>Use the wisdom of the crowds to assist the Patent Office.</title>
<body>Many patents refer to ideas which are already in use. They are often identified online as "prior art" even before being granted. As the public cannot challenge a patent application, these contributions are lost. The Obama Administration should instruct the USPTO to create a public, wiki-style, database of all new patent applications and recruit these online volunteers to document prior art, and other problems, and have the USPTO instruct its examiners to take this resource into account when assessing new patents. Such a resource can also be used aid smaller inventors.
The Administration should then work with Congress to allow the USPTO to reassess previously granted patents that would not be granted today, rather than requiring expensive court action by involved parties, for each and every patent. Again, crowd sourcing will assist immensely in reducing the workload and cost of such a reform.</body>"
It's modest, appeals to Obama's public-access vibe (like the whole petition thing), while hinting at a general dissatisfaction with the pace of patent reform (without being a shouty dickhead about it), and suggesting a "next step".
The shuttle? The US space shuttle? Which couldn't be launched in late December because the computer couldn't cope with year end roll over? Because the programmers didn't think the shuttle would ever be in orbit over the New Year? Seriously? A problem that existed since Mercury, was repeated on the shuttle and wasn't fixed until 2007? That's your standard of excellence?
El Reg
MSNBC "The shuttle computers were never envisioned to fly through a year-end changeover"
Wikipedia "Historically, the Shuttle was not launched if its flight would run from December to January (a year-end rollover or YERO). Its flight software, designed in the 1970s, was not designed for this, and would require the orbiter's computers be reset through a change of year, which could cause a glitch while in orbit. In 2007, NASA engineers devised a solution so Shuttle flights could cross the year-end boundary"
But don't store the actual password file in the deposit box. Instead leave the first clues in a series of increasingly difficult puzzles, the solution to each one will provide one password, which will unlock a system that will reveal something necessary to solve the next puzzle.
I have to assume you have no real idea what benefits there are to a manual transmission
Chill dude, you'll give yourself an ulcer. I wasn't advocating anything. I was just explaining the economics of why manuals are more expensive for car companies to produce, in spite of being mechanically simpler, and thus why you're seeing less of them offered.
"And cars have been designed to accommodate both an automatic and a manual since"
Right, and the manual was the mass produced base model, while the automatic was the expensive luxury model. The auto was the "modified" version, hence more expensive, hence reserved for the luxury or executive version.
Now the automatic is the base model, and the luxury and sport models have dual-clutch semi-autos. So for the manual, they need to produce an entirely unique production line, with little product overlap, for an entirely different non-luxury model, for a shrinking market which can't be advertised to.
And as dual-clutch autos increasingly filter down to the base model in more and more brands, do you expect to see more manuals?
I meant a reset for the computer(s). Leaving the basic engine, brakes, power steering, etc, under manual control.
Instead of having to turn off the entire car. (Which is like telling someone to flip the building's mains off-and-on when their browser freezes.)
You're also modifying the car/cabin itself to fit the linkages and physical requirements of the extra peddle and conventional gear-stick. Essentially the manual version is more like a modified custom car (much more so that the "sports" model, which probably sells in higher numbers anyway.)
And it will only get worse. Like I said, it is probably already cheaper and easier to fit a fake third pedal that to do all the redesign necessary for a real clutch and manual gearbox.
Nowadays, we pay a premium for the old-fashioned gearbox, which I (as a gearhead) find particularly odd and disturbing...
Why "odd"? If I make 100,000 cars of a model type. 85,000 regular automaticss. 10,000 luxury automatics, with pseudo-manual "Tiptronic". 3,000 sports models, also with pseudo-manual. And 2,000 conventional manuals. Why would you expect a system developed solely for a 2,000-car range to be cheaper than one developed for a 70,000-car range?
I suspect, eventually, it will be cheaper to put a drive-by-wire pretend clutch-pedal connected to that pseudo-manual automatic, rather than develop a real manual gearbox and clutch for the handful of people who insist on a third pedal.
Lovely. Subtle. With all the "get a clutch" comments, I had "Meh"ed and moved on to other comments before my pun detector kicked in.
If the fault occurs, cruise control can only be disabled by turning of the ignition while driving
The advice is really "try turning it off and on again"?
(How about adding a soft-reset button on the steering wheel for all these drive-by-wire features?)
<Sigh> Joke, dude. Stupid Poe's law.
It's well known that when half the bees are flying, the truck weighs half as much. I think Mythbusters proved it.
posting to undo mod.
signed,
dumbass.