Ahhh... A voice of reason. It is so rare that I meet one such as you.
One of the best things that I see about the US government (and most other successful governments) is that it is hard for one "side" to succeed over another. There is a constant pull back towards the center. Of course, like everything else, it oscillates back and forth. Sometimes the country is moving more conservative, sometimes it moves more liberal. But, it always moves back to the center.
I have a problem, though, with the alarmists who choose to ignore that fact. The biggest one right now is Glenn Beck. These people argue that the natural stopping point of any movement is the extreme.
From what I have seen, the basic rhetoric is...
Obama has shown us he is a communist by passing the healthcare bill. So, in a few years he will nationalize all of our country's businesses. A few years after that, he will nationalize all of the private property and we will be fully communist.
This type of rhetoric is crap and is an insult to the great things about this country. I think it would help the debate out a lot if people would talk about what is happening now, and not make so many predictions about what they think the other side might do in the future. Or, just realize that if I a person claims themself as a Republican or Democrat, that doesn't mean they are an extremist. I am a liberal, but if Obama tried to get rid of the free market, I would fight him tooth and nail.
Again, the difference being that "power" in the context of communism means armed forces and secret police, while the "power" of a monopoly is being able to sell light bulbs slightly cheaper than your competition.
So, let me try to see what you are trying to say.
First, it seems you are saying that only governments can have a military type force. You might want to do a little research on that assertion.
Second, you are saying that even if the worst happened and a private company got a military force, it would not do anything "secret". So, everything that a security force does for a private company does will be document and the public will be informed of it. Is this correct? If so, is it congruent with your libertarian ideals?
And, this is assuming that the sole way for a private company to influence an armed force is by owning one. But, I would assert that monopolies tend to have a lot of money and money can be used to influence (or directly pay for with a bribe) the actions of publicly elected officials. So, a private corporation could have enough influence in the government through their money (obtained through eliminating the competition and then selling their lightbulbs for more than they should be worth) to get the government to perform the necessary military and secret police actions for them.
I'm not saying this is going to happen. I just want you to prove to me that it won't if we have a completely ideal libertarian free market.
The fact that you can sit on your PC and complain about the system (specifically some content provider changing some TOS) over the internet is an pretty good indication that it is succeeding.
No. We do not live in a free market. It is regulated. Monopolies are punished when they use their monopoly in an anti-competitive manner. By your logic, a lot of the European countries are more socialist/communist, so it is a good indication that communism is succeeding. Libertarians want the extreme. The reason why you don't have an example of the extreme working is because it breaks down before it ever gets there (just like communism did). If I am wrong, show me a place that has your libertarian system. I do not argue that the free market does not have its advantages. But I also acknowledge its disadvantages. So I like that in the US we use a free market that is regulated to try to find the balance in the middle that gives you the best of both worlds.
Where is this not happening? Why are you asking him to prove himself right? If you truly believe what you are saying, why don't you prove him wrong? As I said in another post, lack of information is not an argument in your favor.
I will grant you that the Communist system leads to a concentration of power, which leads to corruption, which leads to immoral people being in charge, which leads to labor camps and mass executions. But, if you go full Libertarian, in most markets you will naturally end up with a monopoly. Which is a concentration in power. Why do you believe it will end in a different fashion than communism?
The flaw in your logic is that you are quick to point to where another system has failed and seem to think that because your system hasn't failed, it is better. It hasn't succeeded either, though. Lack of information is not a good argument.
I completely disagree. Comcast DVRs are crap and I will not pay money for one. But, third party DVRs tend to be decent and worth the money. Too bad they too tend to use the "VCR" programming feature. This is the definition of anti-competitive. They are using their monopoly in one market (cable provider) to influence their competitiveness in another (DVRs).
Oh, I understand Libertarians now. It is not their beliefs are wrong. The people are wrong for not living their lives "correctly". If you could make the people in the country act "right" then the country would be Libertarian and perfect.
So, they are just like communists. The communist system didn't fail because their system didn't work. It was because the people did not act "correctly". If only they could have acted "right" and sacrificed their own self-interest for the interest of the whole, then communism would have succeeded.
The truth is, that you have wonderful ideals, but they have no place in reality. The reason why the US constitution is such a good document (not perfect, but pretty good) is because it does not assume that people will be perfect. It is designed for imperfect people, and will survive their imperfection. Your system is designed for perfect people, and when it meets an imperfect person it will completely fail.
I was under the impressing (didn't RTFA) that they used brute force to break the encryption. (ie, they just try every possible key until they find the correct one). If that is the case, then how can you say how long it will take? The maximum amount of time is the amount of time it would take to try every possible key. The minimum amount of time is the time to try one key (your first guess is correct). Maybe they got lucky. Or do I not understand how this process works?
I disagree with you, but it is easy to be an armchair chaingunner so I am not going to argue that point. But, that point is secondary point. I think the coverup is the worst part about this leak. The family and Reuters had a right to know how the people died. The family for closure. Reuters because it allows them to better assess the risks they are asking their employees to take.
Certainly, you can get by without the internet. You can also get by without electricity, gas, and telephone. A significant percentage of the world population also gets by without running (or clean) water, though I won't argue that is not a "necessity" as you define it. But, gas? You can get a wood burning stove (for heat and cooking). Electricity? I am not sure where you would argue that it is necessary for biological survival (AC, light, electric hairdryer) but I am sure I can find an argument against it. Telephone? Get a bike.
But, for some reason, these are all designated as necessary utilities (I don't know why you mentioned biological survival. Are they defined that way somewhere? Cite?). Do you disagree with this? If not, tell me why you draw the line where you do (ie, why would your argument be so different from mine).
I am not sure that it is actually necessary to define the internet as a necessary utility right now, but I am positive it will be necessary in the future. Who should decide when the time is right?
Do you know the difference between necessity and convenience? Is education a necessity or convenience? What about telephone?
You seem to define necessity as the absolute basics for a human to survive. But, then I would say the only necessity is running water. I can get a wood stove. Central heat is a "convenience". I can get kerosene lamps. Electricity is a "convenience".
I define a necessity in this case (how the government should define necessity in my opinion) as anything that is necessary for a stable society. In the United States, that is defined as giving everyone a fair opportunity to be successful. Hence, I would say internet is a basic American "necessity". Without gas, water, electricity, internet, and education (though internet could make a public formal education system unnecessary), a person is extremely unlikely to be successful in our society.
I don't say this because I want the government to provide me with internet. I already have all the necessities that I defined. I am fine with paying for them. But, I think everyone needs to have access to those necessities.
I am sure you will tell me where you disagree (probably by saying "but I don't want to pay for anything for anyone but myself").
Not paying my power/gas bill can result in me freezing to death.
What percentage of your activities that are necessary for you to be a functioning member of society do you now perform online? Do you pay your bills online? Do you manage your money online? Do you communicate with people online (for example the people you pay your bills to)? Do you get information for performing your offline duties from the internet (how to get places, proceedures you need to follow, ect)? Do you file your taxes online?
Have you tried to apply for a job recently? I went to a job fair with about 30 resumes to give to companies. I ended up giving out 2. The rest, when I tried to give them a resume, told me to instead submit my resume and application online.
So, no. If I don't have internet I won't freeze to death. But I will be at a severe disadvantage to just about everyone else if I cannot use the internet. And, in this economy, a severe disadvantage means no job.
And, if I don't have a job, I might freeze to death.
Seriously? Do you eat it, or breathe it, or take shelter in it when the weather gets bad?
No, I do none of those. But, 90% of my communication for my job, and about half of my personal communication is through the internet. I pay my bills online. I (when I didn't have a job) applied for jobs online. When I was in school, I submitted my assignments online. Right now, you are at a severe disadvantage for doing just about anything related to day-to-day living if you do not have an internet connection.
* Fix decades of code that refer to Mb so they either say the correct numeric value or change the unit to MiB.
The world won't end if OLD computers say it wrong (like they have for years). But NEW computers should say it right.
* 'Educate' IT to start saying Mebi and also convince them they don't sound retarded when they say it.
If hard drives and computers all list things in MB (megabytes -> 1,000,000 bytes) or GB (gigabytes -> 1,000,000,000 bytes) then you don't have to re-educate the IT folks. If they decide to list it in MiB or GiB then the ignorant IT people will notice the weird "i" and probably look it up on wikipedia. And, it won't sound retarded if people use it regularly. It only sounds retarded to you because you just learned about it (you aren't very tech savvy, are you?)
* 'Educate' the public so they don't think their IT person is retarded, but rather talking about a convoluted new scheme to 'fix' things because some people don't understand base-2 verses base-10
The general public already thinks that their IT person is retarded. And, most IT people I have met are retarded. And, the general public is going to keep saying what they have been saying because they don't give a shit. But, I don't think that we should keep the vernacular wrong in the tech industry just because people outside the industry will use the wrong term. Your way of doing things is what will lead to Idiocracy.
Maybe we should have the jocks make up the names so that they can be cool.
Or, we could just standardize memory sizes to the way the rest of the scientific community uses the prefixes. You know... to limit confusion. So that geeks aren't portraying themselves as elitist dicks who have to have their prefixes mean something different than what everyone else uses.
And just to throw it out there, "kilo" meant 1000 way before nerds started using it to mean 1024.
It gets even cooler than that, as I assume you are tech savvy. Businesses (ones that use a lot of electricity like manufacturing plants) do not generally pay a flat fee for power. Power gets more expensive as demand goes up, because a base load power plant (coal, nuclear, hydro) can make electricity very cheaply, but cannot scale the amount it is making up and down very easily. So, there are a bunch of other (usually gas turbine) power plants scattered around that can turn on very quickly when they are needed. But, these are expensive to run. So, the business usually pays the actual cost of the power (which increases during the day and in the summer). Residential service is generally just averaged out. So, if you had a smart meter that was told by the power plant how much power costs in real time, you could connect your computer to it and adjust your power usage. You could set your thermostat based upon the price of power (as the price goes up you let your house get warmer, when it goes down you turn the AC back on to cool it down). You could dim your lights. Have your laptop run off of battery power. Anything is possible (assuming you have a very smart house) and everyone wins. Your power bill will go down because you are buying power when it is cheap. The power company saves money because the load becomes more normalized.
There are already offers out there where the power company can turn off your AC in return for a discounted rate (so they can control the power leveling). This is, in my opinion, less than ideal. I think it would be better for the consumers to decide through the free market. They can decide how much life's little luxuries are worth to them, and program their power consumption to fit their needs.
I talked about amps to simplify things. The ac voltage arriving at your house is pretty much a regulated constant with the exception of occasional surges, blackouts and brownouts. Every part of your household electrical system is designed to function at the voltage supplied to your house.
True, everything is designed to work at (in the US) 120V AC but that does not mean that it has a similar current draw. For a light bulb (which is just a resistor) the current will follow the shape of the voltage (they will both be sinusoidal with the same phase and frequency). But, a cheap AC to DC converter will just have a diode and a capacitor. The current draw for these would be almost zero up to the voltage that the capacitor is currently charged to, and then would jump up once the mains voltage got above that point. So, you would get all of your amperage at high voltages and none at low voltages. This would use more power than a lightbulb that used the same amperage.
Look inside your breaker panel, every breaker is rated in amps. The wiring in your house is rated in amps. Therefore the only thing that is a variable is how much current is drawn through the system.
That is incorrect. The rating is based the wire's ability to dissipate heat so that a fire won't be started. A wire has a constant resistance (per length of wire) so the power dissipated is proportional to the amperage (P = I^2 * R). And, any power dissipated is converted into heat. The fuse/breaker is rated in amps because it is designed to protect the wiring. That is why the breakers are also rated in amps.
Anyway, if you don't believe me, turn on everything in your house and then go outside and notice the rate at which your meter is spinning. Go back inside and flip all the breakers off in one row, leaving the other side on. Go back out to the meter and you will notice that it is spinning a lot faster.
This is an interesting assertion. I will have to test it to see. It is possible that due to reactive power the mains do charge more if you use only one line. I will have to look into it. Thanks for the info.
Don't really know what you are trying to say. The more pertinent equation is P = V times I. (P is power). But if you are using AC electricity then voltage is not constant. And, the amperage draw on most electronics does not follow the voltage (they do not have a constant resistance). Most "wall wart" type transformers that convert to DC power only draw power at the peaks in voltage, but not when it is below the threshold. While a lightbulb (which has a constant resistance) would have an amperage draw that followed the same pattern as the voltage. So, if the two were drawing the same amount of amperage, the "wall wart" would be using more power since it uses the amperage when the voltage is higher. Hence, since your bill is based upon power usage, you would pay more for the wall wart.
But, I would like the ability to shut down my power (or different devices based upon the current price of electricity). As with any online system, security is important. If you want to pay the higher power bill from using electricity you don't need, just so you can be positive your electricity won't get turned off by a hacker, then go ahead. You can also unplug your computer from the wall and be positive that your computer won't be hacked (and you can drive to or call the bank every time you need to transfer money instead of doing it online). But some people are willing to deal with the security concerns for the convenience that is provided.
Google is an advertising company that maintains its audience by providing a service (a search engine). In case you haven't noticed, Google also provides many other services that allow them to maintain their audience (gmail, wave, voice, ect). This is just another service they are providing that will allow them to get a bigger audience. It will also let them target an audience (environmental people) which means the worth of their advertising space goes up.
Actually, yes I do. Throughout the day the cost of power varies widely. At night it is dirt cheap (because it is produced at a coal or nuclear or hydro power plant) but during the day more plants have to be brought online and shut down as the load varies. That makes it very expensive at some times during the day. For residential consumers, this just gets averaged and they get pretty much a flat rate (some places have a time based tier system). But, if I got charged the current price for power, and could have my house decrease or increase power consumption based upon that price, then my cost would go down, and the total cost of the power grid would go down (because the load is more stable). I don't think they should have the ability to force me to turn off any appliance, but it would be good for the whole system if you let the free market determine the price of power through consumers setting their own limits of which appliances can be running at different price points.
What you said does not really make sense to me, and I don't know why you are talking about getting charged for amps. My power company charges me per kilowatt-hour, which is a unit of energy. Amps is just the current flow. The amount of power (and hence energy) being used depends on the voltage as well. I am not sure if what you said is actually wrong, but I am pretty sure it is.
Actually, I would be more worried about an autonomous car going 40kph than one going 100kph. On low speed roads, you have to be worried about people crossing the road. They can walk from behind a big car and the car not be capable of stopping in time (a human could see them walk behind the car and be alert for them coming back out, while computers at this point cannot). On the highway, though, (especially in the HOV lane) you don't have to worry about pedestrians so i think computers could be safer.
But, there is more to it than just list price. If the disks use less energy, then that can add up quickly, especially at big server farms. A drive you have to replace half as often is more than worth twice as much, because you are at a lower risk of data loss and don't have to expend the labor to replace it.
IANAL, but I think this might only be if you have legally assaulted the person. At that point you have broken a crime and are therefore liable for the outcome of it. But, the argument could be made that Google has broken the law, so I am not saying that you are wrong.
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Ahhh... A voice of reason. It is so rare that I meet one such as you.
One of the best things that I see about the US government (and most other successful governments) is that it is hard for one "side" to succeed over another. There is a constant pull back towards the center. Of course, like everything else, it oscillates back and forth. Sometimes the country is moving more conservative, sometimes it moves more liberal. But, it always moves back to the center.
I have a problem, though, with the alarmists who choose to ignore that fact. The biggest one right now is Glenn Beck. These people argue that the natural stopping point of any movement is the extreme.
From what I have seen, the basic rhetoric is...
Obama has shown us he is a communist by passing the healthcare bill. So, in a few years he will nationalize all of our country's businesses. A few years after that, he will nationalize all of the private property and we will be fully communist.
This type of rhetoric is crap and is an insult to the great things about this country. I think it would help the debate out a lot if people would talk about what is happening now, and not make so many predictions about what they think the other side might do in the future. Or, just realize that if I a person claims themself as a Republican or Democrat, that doesn't mean they are an extremist. I am a liberal, but if Obama tried to get rid of the free market, I would fight him tooth and nail.
Again, the difference being that "power" in the context of communism means armed forces and secret police, while the "power" of a monopoly is being able to sell light bulbs slightly cheaper than your competition.
So, let me try to see what you are trying to say.
First, it seems you are saying that only governments can have a military type force. You might want to do a little research on that assertion.
Second, you are saying that even if the worst happened and a private company got a military force, it would not do anything "secret". So, everything that a security force does for a private company does will be document and the public will be informed of it. Is this correct? If so, is it congruent with your libertarian ideals?
And, this is assuming that the sole way for a private company to influence an armed force is by owning one. But, I would assert that monopolies tend to have a lot of money and money can be used to influence (or directly pay for with a bribe) the actions of publicly elected officials. So, a private corporation could have enough influence in the government through their money (obtained through eliminating the competition and then selling their lightbulbs for more than they should be worth) to get the government to perform the necessary military and secret police actions for them.
I'm not saying this is going to happen. I just want you to prove to me that it won't if we have a completely ideal libertarian free market.
The fact that you can sit on your PC and complain about the system (specifically some content provider changing some TOS) over the internet is an pretty good indication that it is succeeding.
No. We do not live in a free market. It is regulated. Monopolies are punished when they use their monopoly in an anti-competitive manner. By your logic, a lot of the European countries are more socialist/communist, so it is a good indication that communism is succeeding. Libertarians want the extreme. The reason why you don't have an example of the extreme working is because it breaks down before it ever gets there (just like communism did). If I am wrong, show me a place that has your libertarian system. I do not argue that the free market does not have its advantages. But I also acknowledge its disadvantages. So I like that in the US we use a free market that is regulated to try to find the balance in the middle that gives you the best of both worlds.
Where is this not happening? Why are you asking him to prove himself right? If you truly believe what you are saying, why don't you prove him wrong? As I said in another post, lack of information is not an argument in your favor.
I will grant you that the Communist system leads to a concentration of power, which leads to corruption, which leads to immoral people being in charge, which leads to labor camps and mass executions. But, if you go full Libertarian, in most markets you will naturally end up with a monopoly. Which is a concentration in power. Why do you believe it will end in a different fashion than communism?
The flaw in your logic is that you are quick to point to where another system has failed and seem to think that because your system hasn't failed, it is better. It hasn't succeeded either, though. Lack of information is not a good argument.
I completely disagree. Comcast DVRs are crap and I will not pay money for one. But, third party DVRs tend to be decent and worth the money. Too bad they too tend to use the "VCR" programming feature. This is the definition of anti-competitive. They are using their monopoly in one market (cable provider) to influence their competitiveness in another (DVRs).
Oh, I understand Libertarians now. It is not their beliefs are wrong. The people are wrong for not living their lives "correctly". If you could make the people in the country act "right" then the country would be Libertarian and perfect.
So, they are just like communists. The communist system didn't fail because their system didn't work. It was because the people did not act "correctly". If only they could have acted "right" and sacrificed their own self-interest for the interest of the whole, then communism would have succeeded.
The truth is, that you have wonderful ideals, but they have no place in reality. The reason why the US constitution is such a good document (not perfect, but pretty good) is because it does not assume that people will be perfect. It is designed for imperfect people, and will survive their imperfection. Your system is designed for perfect people, and when it meets an imperfect person it will completely fail.
I was under the impressing (didn't RTFA) that they used brute force to break the encryption. (ie, they just try every possible key until they find the correct one). If that is the case, then how can you say how long it will take? The maximum amount of time is the amount of time it would take to try every possible key. The minimum amount of time is the time to try one key (your first guess is correct). Maybe they got lucky. Or do I not understand how this process works?
I disagree with you, but it is easy to be an armchair chaingunner so I am not going to argue that point. But, that point is secondary point. I think the coverup is the worst part about this leak. The family and Reuters had a right to know how the people died. The family for closure. Reuters because it allows them to better assess the risks they are asking their employees to take.
Yes... I think I can build a wind turbine with electricity.
Certainly, you can get by without the internet. You can also get by without electricity, gas, and telephone. A significant percentage of the world population also gets by without running (or clean) water, though I won't argue that is not a "necessity" as you define it. But, gas? You can get a wood burning stove (for heat and cooking). Electricity? I am not sure where you would argue that it is necessary for biological survival (AC, light, electric hairdryer) but I am sure I can find an argument against it. Telephone? Get a bike.
But, for some reason, these are all designated as necessary utilities (I don't know why you mentioned biological survival. Are they defined that way somewhere? Cite?). Do you disagree with this? If not, tell me why you draw the line where you do (ie, why would your argument be so different from mine).
I am not sure that it is actually necessary to define the internet as a necessary utility right now, but I am positive it will be necessary in the future. Who should decide when the time is right?
Do you know the difference between necessity and convenience? Is education a necessity or convenience? What about telephone?
You seem to define necessity as the absolute basics for a human to survive. But, then I would say the only necessity is running water. I can get a wood stove. Central heat is a "convenience". I can get kerosene lamps. Electricity is a "convenience".
I define a necessity in this case (how the government should define necessity in my opinion) as anything that is necessary for a stable society. In the United States, that is defined as giving everyone a fair opportunity to be successful. Hence, I would say internet is a basic American "necessity". Without gas, water, electricity, internet, and education (though internet could make a public formal education system unnecessary), a person is extremely unlikely to be successful in our society.
I don't say this because I want the government to provide me with internet. I already have all the necessities that I defined. I am fine with paying for them. But, I think everyone needs to have access to those necessities.
I am sure you will tell me where you disagree (probably by saying "but I don't want to pay for anything for anyone but myself").
Not paying my power/gas bill can result in me freezing to death.
What percentage of your activities that are necessary for you to be a functioning member of society do you now perform online? Do you pay your bills online? Do you manage your money online? Do you communicate with people online (for example the people you pay your bills to)? Do you get information for performing your offline duties from the internet (how to get places, proceedures you need to follow, ect)? Do you file your taxes online?
Have you tried to apply for a job recently? I went to a job fair with about 30 resumes to give to companies. I ended up giving out 2. The rest, when I tried to give them a resume, told me to instead submit my resume and application online.
So, no. If I don't have internet I won't freeze to death. But I will be at a severe disadvantage to just about everyone else if I cannot use the internet. And, in this economy, a severe disadvantage means no job.
And, if I don't have a job, I might freeze to death.
Seriously? Do you eat it, or breathe it, or take shelter in it when the weather gets bad?
No, I do none of those. But, 90% of my communication for my job, and about half of my personal communication is through the internet. I pay my bills online. I (when I didn't have a job) applied for jobs online. When I was in school, I submitted my assignments online. Right now, you are at a severe disadvantage for doing just about anything related to day-to-day living if you do not have an internet connection.
* Fix decades of code that refer to Mb so they either say the correct numeric value or change the unit to MiB.
The world won't end if OLD computers say it wrong (like they have for years). But NEW computers should say it right.
* 'Educate' IT to start saying Mebi and also convince them they don't sound retarded when they say it.
If hard drives and computers all list things in MB (megabytes -> 1,000,000 bytes) or GB (gigabytes -> 1,000,000,000 bytes) then you don't have to re-educate the IT folks. If they decide to list it in MiB or GiB then the ignorant IT people will notice the weird "i" and probably look it up on wikipedia. And, it won't sound retarded if people use it regularly. It only sounds retarded to you because you just learned about it (you aren't very tech savvy, are you?)
* 'Educate' the public so they don't think their IT person is retarded, but rather talking about a convoluted new scheme to 'fix' things because some people don't understand base-2 verses base-10
The general public already thinks that their IT person is retarded. And, most IT people I have met are retarded. And, the general public is going to keep saying what they have been saying because they don't give a shit. But, I don't think that we should keep the vernacular wrong in the tech industry just because people outside the industry will use the wrong term. Your way of doing things is what will lead to Idiocracy.
Maybe we should have the jocks make up the names so that they can be cool.
Or, we could just standardize memory sizes to the way the rest of the scientific community uses the prefixes. You know... to limit confusion. So that geeks aren't portraying themselves as elitist dicks who have to have their prefixes mean something different than what everyone else uses.
And just to throw it out there, "kilo" meant 1000 way before nerds started using it to mean 1024.
There are already offers out there where the power company can turn off your AC in return for a discounted rate (so they can control the power leveling). This is, in my opinion, less than ideal. I think it would be better for the consumers to decide through the free market. They can decide how much life's little luxuries are worth to them, and program their power consumption to fit their needs.
I talked about amps to simplify things. The ac voltage arriving at your house is pretty much a regulated constant with the exception of occasional surges, blackouts and brownouts. Every part of your household electrical system is designed to function at the voltage supplied to your house.
True, everything is designed to work at (in the US) 120V AC but that does not mean that it has a similar current draw. For a light bulb (which is just a resistor) the current will follow the shape of the voltage (they will both be sinusoidal with the same phase and frequency). But, a cheap AC to DC converter will just have a diode and a capacitor. The current draw for these would be almost zero up to the voltage that the capacitor is currently charged to, and then would jump up once the mains voltage got above that point. So, you would get all of your amperage at high voltages and none at low voltages. This would use more power than a lightbulb that used the same amperage.
Look inside your breaker panel, every breaker is rated in amps. The wiring in your house is rated in amps. Therefore the only thing that is a variable is how much current is drawn through the system.
That is incorrect. The rating is based the wire's ability to dissipate heat so that a fire won't be started. A wire has a constant resistance (per length of wire) so the power dissipated is proportional to the amperage (P = I^2 * R). And, any power dissipated is converted into heat. The fuse/breaker is rated in amps because it is designed to protect the wiring. That is why the breakers are also rated in amps.
Anyway, if you don't believe me, turn on everything in your house and then go outside and notice the rate at which your meter is spinning. Go back inside and flip all the breakers off in one row, leaving the other side on. Go back out to the meter and you will notice that it is spinning a lot faster.
This is an interesting assertion. I will have to test it to see. It is possible that due to reactive power the mains do charge more if you use only one line. I will have to look into it. Thanks for the info.
Don't really know what you are trying to say. The more pertinent equation is P = V times I. (P is power). But if you are using AC electricity then voltage is not constant. And, the amperage draw on most electronics does not follow the voltage (they do not have a constant resistance). Most "wall wart" type transformers that convert to DC power only draw power at the peaks in voltage, but not when it is below the threshold. While a lightbulb (which has a constant resistance) would have an amperage draw that followed the same pattern as the voltage. So, if the two were drawing the same amount of amperage, the "wall wart" would be using more power since it uses the amperage when the voltage is higher. Hence, since your bill is based upon power usage, you would pay more for the wall wart.
But, I would like the ability to shut down my power (or different devices based upon the current price of electricity). As with any online system, security is important. If you want to pay the higher power bill from using electricity you don't need, just so you can be positive your electricity won't get turned off by a hacker, then go ahead. You can also unplug your computer from the wall and be positive that your computer won't be hacked (and you can drive to or call the bank every time you need to transfer money instead of doing it online). But some people are willing to deal with the security concerns for the convenience that is provided.
Google is an advertising company that maintains its audience by providing a service (a search engine). In case you haven't noticed, Google also provides many other services that allow them to maintain their audience (gmail, wave, voice, ect). This is just another service they are providing that will allow them to get a bigger audience. It will also let them target an audience (environmental people) which means the worth of their advertising space goes up.
Actually, yes I do. Throughout the day the cost of power varies widely. At night it is dirt cheap (because it is produced at a coal or nuclear or hydro power plant) but during the day more plants have to be brought online and shut down as the load varies. That makes it very expensive at some times during the day. For residential consumers, this just gets averaged and they get pretty much a flat rate (some places have a time based tier system). But, if I got charged the current price for power, and could have my house decrease or increase power consumption based upon that price, then my cost would go down, and the total cost of the power grid would go down (because the load is more stable). I don't think they should have the ability to force me to turn off any appliance, but it would be good for the whole system if you let the free market determine the price of power through consumers setting their own limits of which appliances can be running at different price points.
What you said does not really make sense to me, and I don't know why you are talking about getting charged for amps. My power company charges me per kilowatt-hour, which is a unit of energy. Amps is just the current flow. The amount of power (and hence energy) being used depends on the voltage as well. I am not sure if what you said is actually wrong, but I am pretty sure it is.
Actually, I would be more worried about an autonomous car going 40kph than one going 100kph. On low speed roads, you have to be worried about people crossing the road. They can walk from behind a big car and the car not be capable of stopping in time (a human could see them walk behind the car and be alert for them coming back out, while computers at this point cannot). On the highway, though, (especially in the HOV lane) you don't have to worry about pedestrians so i think computers could be safer.
But, there is more to it than just list price. If the disks use less energy, then that can add up quickly, especially at big server farms. A drive you have to replace half as often is more than worth twice as much, because you are at a lower risk of data loss and don't have to expend the labor to replace it.
IANAL, but I think this might only be if you have legally assaulted the person. At that point you have broken a crime and are therefore liable for the outcome of it. But, the argument could be made that Google has broken the law, so I am not saying that you are wrong.