The problem became evident when it was clear that he had nothing beyond what he had done for ST:NG, so just kept going down the same road, endlessly repeating the plot lines with ever-decreasing effectiveness. It was tolerable during the ST:DS9, mainly because the writing was reasonably good and the characters sufficiently interesting to hold our attention.
Both the late-TNG and DS9 have heavy influence from Ronald D. Moore (who now does Battlestar Galactica). Berman and Moore had a falling out during the first season of Voyager. The fact that Star Trek went steeply downhill just then can't be a coincidence.
Personally, I think Moore's gritty style makes for good stories, but ones that aren't necessarily appropriate for the utopian vision of Star Trek. This is particularly evident in DS9's Dominion War arc, with episodes like The Siege of AR-558. OTOH, the same style works really well for BSG.
. . . there is an absolute limit to the supply of gold.
There's an absolute limit on the supply of gold in the earth's crust that we can get at with modern mining equipment. In theory, you can get more either artificially (through nuclear reactions) or from some place other than the earth's crust (core or asteroid mining). Admittedly, it remains to be seen if any of these technologies can be done economically.
You'll see a sharp drop in the general metals market if any one of those technologies pans out. If currency is based on any of those metals, you'll see a corresponding drop in those currencies. Consider that all asteroid mining needs is to get launch costs down and a bit of robotics engineering, and it seems very likely that we'll see just such a technology pan out within our lifetime. I wouldn't want to have my currency based on gold when that happens.
The big problem with ethernet's design was its "spew everything to everyone" mentality. In practice, this was fixed by good switches becoming almost as cheap as hubs.
The main alternative to ethernet was token ring, which works much like a meeting where you have big stick that's passed around, and only the person with the stick can talk.
. . . prices go up because your government decides every day to ruin the value of your money.
The government doesn't control inflation directly. It has some indirect means (interest rates, national debt, amount of money in circulation, etc.), but ultimately its all invisible hand stuff.
Because the U.S. dollar is being inflated as fast as it is (and has been since 1913)
The current problems with the dollar have to do with foreign currencies, many of which didn't exist in 1913. The Euro, in particular, has been giving the USD its first major competition in a long time.
In any case, consumer electronics tends not to follow inflation with the rest of the economy. We tend to expect the cost/byte of memory to drop every year. Same thing with cost/performance of CPUs. New DVDs have been between $20-25 for years, and music CDs between $15-20. Electronics companies still end up making more money against general inflation figures because:
Cost of production tends to drop
The market tends to grow, so they can make up thinner margins by moving more volume
So if general electronics holds at a steady or even deflationary price, why are games going up? The stated reason given by the developers--that more complex games require higher development costs--seems the most reasonable answer.
How about the ability to repair and put back online? Or strip for parts and use in other machines? We do both of that where I work (a ~75-employee manufacturing facility with a ~35-computer network). A lot of money can be saved this way.
Once you factor in the cost of employee time, it's rarely worth the money over binning the old machines and buying new ones.
Otherwise, the C is released back into the environment when the algae dies and rots (or is eaten by another higher-order creature then excreted), most likely as CO2.
When dead, algae tends to sink to the bottom of whatever water it's in and get collected together. It often ends up being chewed up in geothermal processes. Most of the oil on Earth was once algae.
Some people in the US still battle over trivial things, like what direction your hat is pointing. You wouldn't want to be black and traveling in some areas of the South. And Democrats vs. Republicans . . . can we just hang the whole lot and start over?
Democracy also tends to give people an outlet to effect change that doesn't involve violence. This, however, presumes you have a stable democracy already, which Iraq doesn't have and isn't likely to get.
I must agree with the GP (to an extent). The feuds between factions in Iraq are very old. Some can be traced back to the time of Muhammad, others probably originate with somebody sleeping with someone else's wife thousands of years ago. Saddam only controlled the feuds by violent suppression. Take that away, and they all come back.
Where I disagree with the GP is the fact that the fundamental problem is somehow limited to the Arab region. It's actually a problem with humanity as a whole, and the Arab region just happens to have the oldest feuds.
No, a robot, by definition, always has some kind of programming behind it to do tasks that aren't directly controlled by a human. An RC car or plane does not qualify as a robot.
Arguably, a more personal style of warfare tends to avoid needless slaughter. While still violent, there is a certain level of honor and glory in a battle of swords. That gets taken away when it becomes just pressing buttons from miles away.
Ever play "Defcon"? Even though it's just a game, it illustrates the effect quite nicely. The game may be a simplification of reality, but how much more complex can nuclear warfare be? You press the button, the missile hits, you're told "3.5 million people dead", and you take a drink of Mountain Dew. There's no honor in that kind of war, just massacres.
The engine on it is a turboprop, which is basically a jet engine with a propeller attached. They're not as fast as turbofans (traditional jet engines), but they're much more efficient. You'll see them a lot on small commuter planes.
I believe the V-tail design is for reduced radar signature, similar to the F-22.
No, tidal power has to do with the fact that bodies aren't euclidean points, but have size. As such, the side closest to another object will be pulled more than the side further away.
It looks to me like generating H2 via electrolysis of water is in the same general ballpark effenciency wise as charging/discharging batteries (both somewhere in the 50% range).
Lithium-ion batteries are pretty close to 99.9% efficient. The only way hydrogen is going to beat that is if we hit a shortage of lithium and need a different sort of battery, or hydrogen can somehow become an energy source rather than energy storage. Harvesting pre-existing sources of hydrogen (like Jupiter's atmosphere) would work as an energy source. But if space flight is cheap enough to harvest hydrogen as an energy source, we'll already have access to a bunch of other clean energy sources.
Also add 11 to your list that hydrogen is usually just an additional (and perhaps unnecessary) step in energy conversion, not an energy source in and of itself. Everything is solar powered, it's just a matter of how many steps of conversion happen between the point where the solar radiation reached earth and where someone puts it to practical use.
Solar power isn't quite the only energy on earth. Geothermal power works independently from the sun, as does tidal forces between the earth/moon. Unless you want to argue that both the earth and moon were created as part of the sun's activities in creating the solar system, in which case everything is solar energy.
We all want "energy independence", but the sales of big SUVs are only growing.
The linked article is a load of crock. For instance:
The bigger the guzzler, the better the numbers. Sales of GMC's Yukon XL were up a whopping 72 percent last month, and the totals for its Chevrolet sister, the Suburban, rose 38 percent. Topping off the tank on either one can cost as much as $120.
They costs so much to fill up because they have a 31 gallon fuel tank. That has no direct relation on gas-guzzler status. Its stated mpg is 15/21. Not fantastic, but not a gas-guzzler, either. It's also not particularly worse than the minivans that were popular family cars before the SUV.
And I acknowledged its use in that context in my orginal post. I'm arguing that it's not useful outside that context, which is everywhere except retail, distribution, and manufacturing.
Still, it's an internal-use thing. All organizations develop a shorthand for certain commonly-used things. It tends to make it hard for outsiders to figure out conversations at first, but makes communication very efficient once you catch on. That's fine as far as long as it stays internal, but it should be understood that these terms may have no meaning or a wildly different meanings outside the context of the organization.
That can't possibly be enforceable in court. You always have the right to resale under fair use. Specifically, it's understood that you're not reselling the work (which you don't actually own under copyright law anyway), but are reselling the license to use that work. Copying the video and selling the copy is, of course, illegal, but that doesn't seem to be what they're implying here.
I'd argue that making false claims about what you can and can't do with a copyright work is another form of copyfraud, though not one mentioned in the original story. This interpretation would end up applying to many EULAs, which tend to say a lot of things that can't be enforced.
The Copyright Act
provides for no civil penalty for falsely claiming ownership of public domain
materials.
While this may be true, isn't there a way to fire back with a slander/libel charge? (ha! Let's see the pendants call me on this one:) In other words, you're claiming that I'm violating copyright on one of your works, but that claim is invalid because you don't actually own the copyright.
One possible problem (and a lawyer would have to confirm if this is a problem) is that copyright violations are a matter of federal law (in the US), while slander/libel is state law.
Stop using 'SKU' in news stories and posts. The word has no meaning outside internal retail outlets and distributors. Saying it makes you sound like a marketdroid.
Slashdot Mirror
The problem became evident when it was clear that he had nothing beyond what he had done for ST:NG, so just kept going down the same road, endlessly repeating the plot lines with ever-decreasing effectiveness. It was tolerable during the ST:DS9, mainly because the writing was reasonably good and the characters sufficiently interesting to hold our attention.
Both the late-TNG and DS9 have heavy influence from Ronald D. Moore (who now does Battlestar Galactica). Berman and Moore had a falling out during the first season of Voyager. The fact that Star Trek went steeply downhill just then can't be a coincidence.
Personally, I think Moore's gritty style makes for good stories, but ones that aren't necessarily appropriate for the utopian vision of Star Trek. This is particularly evident in DS9's Dominion War arc, with episodes like The Siege of AR-558. OTOH, the same style works really well for BSG.
. . . there is an absolute limit to the supply of gold.
There's an absolute limit on the supply of gold in the earth's crust that we can get at with modern mining equipment. In theory, you can get more either artificially (through nuclear reactions) or from some place other than the earth's crust (core or asteroid mining). Admittedly, it remains to be seen if any of these technologies can be done economically.
You'll see a sharp drop in the general metals market if any one of those technologies pans out. If currency is based on any of those metals, you'll see a corresponding drop in those currencies. Consider that all asteroid mining needs is to get launch costs down and a bit of robotics engineering, and it seems very likely that we'll see just such a technology pan out within our lifetime. I wouldn't want to have my currency based on gold when that happens.
The big problem with ethernet's design was its "spew everything to everyone" mentality. In practice, this was fixed by good switches becoming almost as cheap as hubs.
The main alternative to ethernet was token ring, which works much like a meeting where you have big stick that's passed around, and only the person with the stick can talk.
. . . prices go up because your government decides every day to ruin the value of your money.
The government doesn't control inflation directly. It has some indirect means (interest rates, national debt, amount of money in circulation, etc.), but ultimately its all invisible hand stuff.
Because the U.S. dollar is being inflated as fast as it is (and has been since 1913)
The current problems with the dollar have to do with foreign currencies, many of which didn't exist in 1913. The Euro, in particular, has been giving the USD its first major competition in a long time.
In any case, consumer electronics tends not to follow inflation with the rest of the economy. We tend to expect the cost/byte of memory to drop every year. Same thing with cost/performance of CPUs. New DVDs have been between $20-25 for years, and music CDs between $15-20. Electronics companies still end up making more money against general inflation figures because:
So if general electronics holds at a steady or even deflationary price, why are games going up? The stated reason given by the developers--that more complex games require higher development costs--seems the most reasonable answer.
Buffer overflows weren't enough?
How about the ability to repair and put back online? Or strip for parts and use in other machines? We do both of that where I work (a ~75-employee manufacturing facility with a ~35-computer network). A lot of money can be saved this way.
Once you factor in the cost of employee time, it's rarely worth the money over binning the old machines and buying new ones.
Otherwise, the C is released back into the environment when the algae dies and rots (or is eaten by another higher-order creature then excreted), most likely as CO2.
When dead, algae tends to sink to the bottom of whatever water it's in and get collected together. It often ends up being chewed up in geothermal processes. Most of the oil on Earth was once algae.
Using "open source" and "RMS" in the same sentence shows you don't really know much about RMS.
Some people in the US still battle over trivial things, like what direction your hat is pointing. You wouldn't want to be black and traveling in some areas of the South. And Democrats vs. Republicans . . . can we just hang the whole lot and start over?
Democracy also tends to give people an outlet to effect change that doesn't involve violence. This, however, presumes you have a stable democracy already, which Iraq doesn't have and isn't likely to get.
I must agree with the GP (to an extent). The feuds between factions in Iraq are very old. Some can be traced back to the time of Muhammad, others probably originate with somebody sleeping with someone else's wife thousands of years ago. Saddam only controlled the feuds by violent suppression. Take that away, and they all come back.
Where I disagree with the GP is the fact that the fundamental problem is somehow limited to the Arab region. It's actually a problem with humanity as a whole, and the Arab region just happens to have the oldest feuds.
No, a robot, by definition, always has some kind of programming behind it to do tasks that aren't directly controlled by a human. An RC car or plane does not qualify as a robot.
Arguably, a more personal style of warfare tends to avoid needless slaughter. While still violent, there is a certain level of honor and glory in a battle of swords. That gets taken away when it becomes just pressing buttons from miles away.
Ever play "Defcon"? Even though it's just a game, it illustrates the effect quite nicely. The game may be a simplification of reality, but how much more complex can nuclear warfare be? You press the button, the missile hits, you're told "3.5 million people dead", and you take a drink of Mountain Dew. There's no honor in that kind of war, just massacres.
The engine on it is a turboprop, which is basically a jet engine with a propeller attached. They're not as fast as turbofans (traditional jet engines), but they're much more efficient. You'll see them a lot on small commuter planes.
I believe the V-tail design is for reduced radar signature, similar to the F-22.
No, tidal power has to do with the fact that bodies aren't euclidean points, but have size. As such, the side closest to another object will be pulled more than the side further away.
It looks to me like generating H2 via electrolysis of water is in the same general ballpark effenciency wise as charging/discharging batteries (both somewhere in the 50% range).
Lithium-ion batteries are pretty close to 99.9% efficient. The only way hydrogen is going to beat that is if we hit a shortage of lithium and need a different sort of battery, or hydrogen can somehow become an energy source rather than energy storage. Harvesting pre-existing sources of hydrogen (like Jupiter's atmosphere) would work as an energy source. But if space flight is cheap enough to harvest hydrogen as an energy source, we'll already have access to a bunch of other clean energy sources.
Also add 11 to your list that hydrogen is usually just an additional (and perhaps unnecessary) step in energy conversion, not an energy source in and of itself. Everything is solar powered, it's just a matter of how many steps of conversion happen between the point where the solar radiation reached earth and where someone puts it to practical use.
Solar power isn't quite the only energy on earth. Geothermal power works independently from the sun, as does tidal forces between the earth/moon. Unless you want to argue that both the earth and moon were created as part of the sun's activities in creating the solar system, in which case everything is solar energy.
And not bathed in blood of slave labor. Never forget that advantage.
"Box"? "Product"? "Version"? They all work in various contexts.
We all want "energy independence", but the sales of big SUVs are only growing.
The linked article is a load of crock. For instance:
The bigger the guzzler, the better the numbers. Sales of GMC's Yukon XL were up a whopping 72 percent last month, and the totals for its Chevrolet sister, the Suburban, rose 38 percent. Topping off the tank on either one can cost as much as $120.
They costs so much to fill up because they have a 31 gallon fuel tank. That has no direct relation on gas-guzzler status. Its stated mpg is 15/21. Not fantastic, but not a gas-guzzler, either. It's also not particularly worse than the minivans that were popular family cars before the SUV.
And I acknowledged its use in that context in my orginal post. I'm arguing that it's not useful outside that context, which is everywhere except retail, distribution, and manufacturing.
Still, it's an internal-use thing. All organizations develop a shorthand for certain commonly-used things. It tends to make it hard for outsiders to figure out conversations at first, but makes communication very efficient once you catch on. That's fine as far as long as it stays internal, but it should be understood that these terms may have no meaning or a wildly different meanings outside the context of the organization.
That can't possibly be enforceable in court. You always have the right to resale under fair use. Specifically, it's understood that you're not reselling the work (which you don't actually own under copyright law anyway), but are reselling the license to use that work. Copying the video and selling the copy is, of course, illegal, but that doesn't seem to be what they're implying here.
I'd argue that making false claims about what you can and can't do with a copyright work is another form of copyfraud, though not one mentioned in the original story. This interpretation would end up applying to many EULAs, which tend to say a lot of things that can't be enforced.
From TFA:
The Copyright Act provides for no civil penalty for falsely claiming ownership of public domain materials.
While this may be true, isn't there a way to fire back with a slander/libel charge? (ha! Let's see the pendants call me on this one :) In other words, you're claiming that I'm violating copyright on one of your works, but that claim is invalid because you don't actually own the copyright.
One possible problem (and a lawyer would have to confirm if this is a problem) is that copyright violations are a matter of federal law (in the US), while slander/libel is state law.
Stop using 'SKU' in news stories and posts. The word has no meaning outside internal retail outlets and distributors. Saying it makes you sound like a marketdroid.
If Nintendo can market themselves as the next fitness craze, there is no further hope for Sony and Microsoft.