Our new microcode reduces performance so much that we must muzzle those who analyze these things for a living to prevent them disclosing their results lest it negatively impact our stock price in a manner sufficient to affect the valuation of those in our organization whose position begins with XXO (Something Something Officer), at least until such time as the proper retirements and/or significant stock sales are complete.
So you're saying a commercial empire that has entertained millions, employed millions and made millionaires was made possible by shorter copyright duration that what we have now?
The very company that is influential enough to extend copyright duration only exists because it was able to take advantage of shorter copyright terms?
Not entirely. Mickey Mouse and other original creations of Disney existed before they made a Jungle Book movie. Disney did benefit from being able to utilize public domain material, but that wasn't the entirety of their efforts.
Once they got big enough to make sufficient campaign contributions to influence copyright terms, they benefited from that as well.
Hum Rudyard Kipling died in 1936 and Dinsey's Jungle Book was released in 1967. I must be missing something here about the copyright expiring
The Jungle Book was first published in 1894. The copyright laws of the time had a much shorter duration. If I remember correctly, it was 14 years from date of publication with the potential for one optional extension of another 14 years. Disney's version was taken from the public domain.
Netflix is charged for internet access.
The consumer is charged for internet access.
The consumer is charged for netflix.
So the ISPs are already burning the candle at both ends and the consumer gets burned twice. And that is in the best, most net-neutral of cases.
There is no double-dipping in this case. Both sides are getting charged separately for access, which is fair. Consumers pay for Internet access. Netflix pays for their Internet access out of what customer of their service pay them for their service.
They want to charge both the provider, and the consumer, again, for the nature of their use (above and beyond the bits for which they are both already paying).
Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but that's what I was trying to say.
Essentially, with NN, everyone got charged the same rate for the bits they used without consideration of what kind of data those bits were. Without NN, the ISPs will try to charge more for certain types of data. Or more accurately, they will charge you more to not degrade the delivery of those bits.
The only reason that the large ISPs hated NN was that it didn't allow them to use their typical "if value, then money" rent-seeking monopolistic means testing.
They were forced to provide a service for a fixed fee that could not be adjusted based on the perceived value of the transfer of bits to the customer. That is, if video is important, then obviously providers like Netflix should pay a higher rate. Even better, customers should pay a higher rate to get those bits from Netflix in a "Giga Blast Video Extreme" network package.
After all, why charge only one side of the equation when both the provider and the consumer can be charged?
The class action lawsuit is not because the chipset is easily subject to DoS attacks. The lawsuit is because the chipset is unsuitable for the purpose for which it was sold and marketed. Any modem based on the chipset may suffer latency of 200ms or more and lose roughly 6% of all the data that is supposed to pass through it.
The fact that the chipset is subject to a DoS attack that uses a (relatively) trivial amount of bandwidth is just another reason to avoid modems that use it.
Just because ATT has attorneys does not mean that they are competent.
My favorite quote concerning the competency of attorneys as written by the presiding judge:
Before proceeding further, the Court notes that this case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact—complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words—to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed.
Depending on where you live, city is the appropriate descriptor. Anecdotally, the city next to mine has a different cable company than the ones (I actually have more than one) available to me. Both cities are in the same county.
Realistically, there should be several size formats for different purposes and market segments. Google wants a new format for their purposes. That doesn't mean that it would necessarily be good for the needs of someone else.
I personally wouldn't mind seeing the return of the 5" HDD.
Given the more than doubling of area (capacity) in each platter by going from 3.5" to 5", I could live with higher seek times to have a 16TB HDD taking up one of the 5" bays in my PC case.
Why is that even a thing? I can understand changes to the modem being an issue but isn't Android modular enough that things like a kernel patch, or some updated software can be delivered without a carrier having to vet anything?
You would think so. Unfortunately, the way it is unless you have a Nexus phone is that first the manufacturer has to vet the patch, then the carrier has to vet it. In part because both pile useless software onto the handset that might rely on whatever is being patched. Even more unfortunately, neither of them have any vested interest in actually applying the patch because they would rather sell a new handset and get you into another contract instead.
While I am not an Apple fan, I think their model of removing other actors from the security equation is beneficial. The Google -> Nexus model is essentially the same thing and is partially why I have a Nexus phone.
The article refers to average pricing.
It is probably also referring to some mythical MSRP, and not the actual price that it will be sold at. It does mention some $60 HDD that you can get for $45.
I would say that the cost per gig for HDDs is still going down. An HDD I bought for 240 last year is now going for 180. So I think the article is missing something with regards to HDD pricing, although I'll grant that the rate of decrease isn't what it is for SSDs.
From TFA, it means that:
2012-2013, prices dropped by 31 cents/gig.
2013-2014, prices dropped by 13 cents/gig.
2014-2015, prices dropped by 16 cents/gig.
It also shows that the estimated price in 2017 will be less than 3X the cost per gig for an SSD vs an HDD. (17 c/G vs 6 c/G)
ISPs aren't common carriers and have never been common carriers. The FCC doesn't classify them as common carriers either. Really that's of no relevance though.
If your local radio is like my local news, then they are actually referring to those hands-free Segway-like boards. Having tried one, I can say that they aren't really any more dangerous than regular skateboards.
Fair enough. I think the original article has a fair bit of pie-in-the-sky optimism myself. I can't disagree with the one point that liquid energy storage will be with us for a while though. If we can shift that to a source that is more carbon-neutral without excessive cost, I'm all for it.
No, solar overproduction may last 5 or 6 hours in the summer, but it drops to one or two in the winter, and practically none on cloudy days. Fuel process plants take time to heat up just to start processing, which can be on the order of hours depending of facility size, unless you have even more capacity to do rapid heatup. Startup cycle increases means efficiency reduction. You really want to run fuel production as close to 24/7 as you can or you are increasing cost significantly.
From the original article: An industry that produces a synthetic liquid fuel can preferentially use a peak energy. I think we need to explore this idea more. For example, imagine collecting piles of recycled aluminum at a plant that uses great amounts of electricity to melt it down and turn it into ingots for industrial use. The entire plant could be designed to operate on demand and only now and then, when there happens to be piles of extra electricity in a clean-energy rich energy ecosystem, perhaps because it is sunny and windy and other demands happen to be low. The employment structure of the plant would also be designed to do this, drawing on-call workers off of other activities to run the plant. This would essentially amount to carrying out a high energy demand industrial task with free energy.
It's not the most efficient thing, nor is it an all the time thing. It's not meant to be. It's just something to do with excess energy when you have too much of it. If you don't have the excess energy, then it doesn't get done. So maybe you only make liquid fuels using excess energy in whatever hemisphere summer happens to be in at the moment. Also, the closer to the equator, the less that daylight variability thing is an issue.
I believe that you and I are close to agreement on what can be done. Where we seem to differ is what should be done. You seem to desire an optimally energy and cost efficient system. On the other hand, I believe that a less efficient system with the possibility/probability of excess generation is perfectly adequate, as it provides for a greater flexibility. I don't condone waste, but I am willing to accept 'good enough' as just that, even if there is something potentially better.
I didn't say that you would want to go broke installing massive solar capacity. I said you would want significant overcapacity. I also didn't say that solar was the only option. In fact, I agree that the best energy source is a mix of sources tailored to usage patterns. I am also definitely one of the people that thinks nuclear is a valid power source.
15 times overcapacity is ludicrous. Not that I'm an expert, but you would want probably not more than 2-3X necessary capacity as an upper limit, and probably less. That allows for variations in generation without excessive overcapacity.
Short peaks of overproduction for solar plants tend to run to several hours, which would be fine for a synfuel plant as described in the original article. If generation drops off, electricity can be purchased from other sources in order to run the plant until generation comes back up, or until the plant can be shut down. Also, WRT to solar, as generation falls in one area it tends to rise in other areas. That offsets the loss, which keeps generation levels near a given level.
Those are just a few of the cost issues at hand. The world does not have unlimited funding. I think some folks prefer the dream of "all solar/all wind" over actual CO2 reduction progress.
I never meant to imply that there is unlimited funding, nor that wind/solar is the one and only answer. They are simply parts of an issue that is far too complex to have only one valid answer.
What matters is overall systemic cost. You should not install massive overcapacity of solar. It would be tremendously expensive, then you'd have to pay even more for inefficient recovery of some of the overcapacity. If we want to make real progress offsetting CO2, we can't waste our money like that.
Actually, you would want significant overcapacity of solar. First, if you're talking about a nationwide system, it evens out the loss of generation in areas that are occluded by things like storms. Second, you can use the excess generation to store energy for overnight usage. Third, is allows for portions of generation capacity to be taken offline for maintenance without reducing capacity below a level where you would need to burn fuels to make up the loss of generation capacity. Fourth, overcapacity would allow you to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere for no other purpose than to remove it from the atmosphere.
Yes, it would be expensive. But, it would be expensive in a "it costs a lot right now, but is almost free (and may be revenue positive) later" kind of way.
Slashdot Mirror
Obviously it's his midichlorian level that's letting him play Tetris so well. If he can manage to beat Sebulba, then you'll know for sure.
Give that Neubauer has an, until now, record breaking midichlorian level of 8997, It makes me wonder if Saelee has a level of...
OVER 9000!!!
Here's a link to the Wikipedia page about it.
Our new microcode reduces performance so much that we must muzzle those who analyze these things for a living to prevent them disclosing their results lest it negatively impact our stock price in a manner sufficient to affect the valuation of those in our organization whose position begins with XXO (Something Something Officer), at least until such time as the proper retirements and/or significant stock sales are complete.
So you're saying a commercial empire that has entertained millions, employed millions and made millionaires was made possible by shorter copyright duration that what we have now?
The very company that is influential enough to extend copyright duration only exists because it was able to take advantage of shorter copyright terms?
Not entirely. Mickey Mouse and other original creations of Disney existed before they made a Jungle Book movie. Disney did benefit from being able to utilize public domain material, but that wasn't the entirety of their efforts.
Once they got big enough to make sufficient campaign contributions to influence copyright terms, they benefited from that as well.
Hum Rudyard Kipling died in 1936 and Dinsey's Jungle Book was released in 1967. I must be missing something here about the copyright expiring
The Jungle Book was first published in 1894. The copyright laws of the time had a much shorter duration. If I remember correctly, it was 14 years from date of publication with the potential for one optional extension of another 14 years.
Disney's version was taken from the public domain.
Netflix is charged for internet access. The consumer is charged for internet access. The consumer is charged for netflix.
So the ISPs are already burning the candle at both ends and the consumer gets burned twice. And that is in the best, most net-neutral of cases.
There is no double-dipping in this case. Both sides are getting charged separately for access, which is fair. Consumers pay for Internet access. Netflix pays for their Internet access out of what customer of their service pay them for their service.
They want to charge both the provider, and the consumer, again, for the nature of their use (above and beyond the bits for which they are both already paying).
Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but that's what I was trying to say.
Essentially, with NN, everyone got charged the same rate for the bits they used without consideration of what kind of data those bits were. Without NN, the ISPs will try to charge more for certain types of data. Or more accurately, they will charge you more to not degrade the delivery of those bits.
The only reason that the large ISPs hated NN was that it didn't allow them to use their typical "if value, then money" rent-seeking monopolistic means testing.
They were forced to provide a service for a fixed fee that could not be adjusted based on the perceived value of the transfer of bits to the customer. That is, if video is important, then obviously providers like Netflix should pay a higher rate. Even better, customers should pay a higher rate to get those bits from Netflix in a "Giga Blast Video Extreme" network package.
After all, why charge only one side of the equation when both the provider and the consumer can be charged?
"Have you tried turning it off and then back on again?"
The class action lawsuit is not because the chipset is easily subject to DoS attacks. The lawsuit is because the chipset is unsuitable for the purpose for which it was sold and marketed. Any modem based on the chipset may suffer latency of 200ms or more and lose roughly 6% of all the data that is supposed to pass through it.
The fact that the chipset is subject to a DoS attack that uses a (relatively) trivial amount of bandwidth is just another reason to avoid modems that use it.
this video.
My favorite quote concerning the competency of attorneys as written by the presiding judge:
Before proceeding further, the Court notes that this case involves two extremely likable lawyers, who have together delivered some of the most amateurish pleadings ever to cross the hallowed causeway into Galveston, an effort which leads the Court to surmise but one plausible explanation. Both attorneys have obviously entered into a secret pact—complete with hats, handshakes and cryptic words—to draft their pleadings entirely in crayon on the back sides of gravy-stained paper place mats, in the hope that the Court would be so charmed by their child-like efforts that their utter dearth of legal authorities in their briefing would go unnoticed.
Depending on where you live, city is the appropriate descriptor. Anecdotally, the city next to mine has a different cable company than the ones (I actually have more than one) available to me. Both cities are in the same county.
Dagnabit! I meant 5-1/4" form factor.
Realistically, there should be several size formats for different purposes and market segments. Google wants a new format for their purposes. That doesn't mean that it would necessarily be good for the needs of someone else.
I personally wouldn't mind seeing the return of the 5" HDD.
Given the more than doubling of area (capacity) in each platter by going from 3.5" to 5", I could live with higher seek times to have a 16TB HDD taking up one of the 5" bays in my PC case.
Why is that even a thing? I can understand changes to the modem being an issue but isn't Android modular enough that things like a kernel patch, or some updated software can be delivered without a carrier having to vet anything?
You would think so. Unfortunately, the way it is unless you have a Nexus phone is that first the manufacturer has to vet the patch, then the carrier has to vet it. In part because both pile useless software onto the handset that might rely on whatever is being patched. Even more unfortunately, neither of them have any vested interest in actually applying the patch because they would rather sell a new handset and get you into another contract instead.
While I am not an Apple fan, I think their model of removing other actors from the security equation is beneficial. The Google -> Nexus model is essentially the same thing and is partially why I have a Nexus phone.
The article refers to average pricing.
It is probably also referring to some mythical MSRP, and not the actual price that it will be sold at. It does mention some $60 HDD that you can get for $45.
I would say that the cost per gig for HDDs is still going down. An HDD I bought for 240 last year is now going for 180. So I think the article is missing something with regards to HDD pricing, although I'll grant that the rate of decrease isn't what it is for SSDs.
From TFA, it means that:
2012-2013, prices dropped by 31 cents/gig.
2013-2014, prices dropped by 13 cents/gig.
2014-2015, prices dropped by 16 cents/gig.
It also shows that the estimated price in 2017 will be less than 3X the cost per gig for an SSD vs an HDD. (17 c/G vs 6 c/G)
ISPs aren't common carriers and have never been common carriers. The FCC doesn't classify them as common carriers either. Really that's of no relevance though.
Actually, ISPs are classified by the FCC as common carriers and are actively fighting to not be classified as such.
Other than that, I am in agreement with you.
If your local radio is like my local news, then they are actually referring to those hands-free Segway-like boards. Having tried one, I can say that they aren't really any more dangerous than regular skateboards.
According to the US Census bureau, (table 4a) there are only 4.3 million registered voters of the 7.3 million voting age population.
Where did the other 1.7 million voters come from? Or am I reading the census data wrong?
The lawyers.
Fair enough. I think the original article has a fair bit of pie-in-the-sky optimism myself. I can't disagree with the one point that liquid energy storage will be with us for a while though. If we can shift that to a source that is more carbon-neutral without excessive cost, I'm all for it.
No, solar overproduction may last 5 or 6 hours in the summer, but it drops to one or two in the winter, and practically none on cloudy days. Fuel process plants take time to heat up just to start processing, which can be on the order of hours depending of facility size, unless you have even more capacity to do rapid heatup. Startup cycle increases means efficiency reduction. You really want to run fuel production as close to 24/7 as you can or you are increasing cost significantly.
From the original article:
An industry that produces a synthetic liquid fuel can preferentially use a peak energy. I think we need to explore this idea more. For example, imagine collecting piles of recycled aluminum at a plant that uses great amounts of electricity to melt it down and turn it into ingots for industrial use. The entire plant could be designed to operate on demand and only now and then, when there happens to be piles of extra electricity in a clean-energy rich energy ecosystem, perhaps because it is sunny and windy and other demands happen to be low. The employment structure of the plant would also be designed to do this, drawing on-call workers off of other activities to run the plant. This would essentially amount to carrying out a high energy demand industrial task with free energy.
It's not the most efficient thing, nor is it an all the time thing. It's not meant to be. It's just something to do with excess energy when you have too much of it. If you don't have the excess energy, then it doesn't get done. So maybe you only make liquid fuels using excess energy in whatever hemisphere summer happens to be in at the moment. Also, the closer to the equator, the less that daylight variability thing is an issue.
I believe that you and I are close to agreement on what can be done. Where we seem to differ is what should be done. You seem to desire an optimally energy and cost efficient system. On the other hand, I believe that a less efficient system with the possibility/probability of excess generation is perfectly adequate, as it provides for a greater flexibility. I don't condone waste, but I am willing to accept 'good enough' as just that, even if there is something potentially better.
I didn't say that you would want to go broke installing massive solar capacity. I said you would want significant overcapacity. I also didn't say that solar was the only option. In fact, I agree that the best energy source is a mix of sources tailored to usage patterns. I am also definitely one of the people that thinks nuclear is a valid power source.
15 times overcapacity is ludicrous. Not that I'm an expert, but you would want probably not more than 2-3X necessary capacity as an upper limit, and probably less. That allows for variations in generation without excessive overcapacity.
Short peaks of overproduction for solar plants tend to run to several hours, which would be fine for a synfuel plant as described in the original article. If generation drops off, electricity can be purchased from other sources in order to run the plant until generation comes back up, or until the plant can be shut down. Also, WRT to solar, as generation falls in one area it tends to rise in other areas. That offsets the loss, which keeps generation levels near a given level.
Those are just a few of the cost issues at hand. The world does not have unlimited funding. I think some folks prefer the dream of "all solar/all wind" over actual CO2 reduction progress.
I never meant to imply that there is unlimited funding, nor that wind/solar is the one and only answer. They are simply parts of an issue that is far too complex to have only one valid answer.
What matters is overall systemic cost. You should not install massive overcapacity of solar. It would be tremendously expensive, then you'd have to pay even more for inefficient recovery of some of the overcapacity. If we want to make real progress offsetting CO2, we can't waste our money like that.
Actually, you would want significant overcapacity of solar. First, if you're talking about a nationwide system, it evens out the loss of generation in areas that are occluded by things like storms. Second, you can use the excess generation to store energy for overnight usage. Third, is allows for portions of generation capacity to be taken offline for maintenance without reducing capacity below a level where you would need to burn fuels to make up the loss of generation capacity. Fourth, overcapacity would allow you to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere for no other purpose than to remove it from the atmosphere.
Yes, it would be expensive. But, it would be expensive in a "it costs a lot right now, but is almost free (and may be revenue positive) later" kind of way.