I don't think Pay TV is screwed at all. It's now automatic for Americans to move-into house and hook-up the utilities: electric, water, internet, and cable TV. If you don't have cable TV you're in the minority (~20%).
As for local TV, I think its future is in the hands of the FCC.
And unfortunately the FCC seems to have sold-out to big corporations, because they keep talking about killing broadcast/antenna television. If that happens, I'll be disappointed. I got about 40 non-duplicated channel using my antenna, all free. I have no desire to be forced into paying Comcast $20 a month for "lifeline" basic. I enjoy what I have:
ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CW, MyNetTV, Ion, Univision, Telefutura, PBS (main channels) Subchannels: - GetWellTV - This movie channel - Weather channel - NBC Sports - RetroTV - MiND - Megahertz - Link - PBSworld - PBSarts - TBN - Church Channel - Smile of a Child (kiddie programs) - JCTV - ENLACE - qubo (kids) - IONlife - Family Channel (old shows and movies) - Syndicated Channel (current movies, plus shows like Legend of the Seeker)
>>>If depicted, non-authentic childporn was legal, he'd argue that childporn should be lega
Bullshit.
Child sex means there's a victim, and the perpetrator should be arrested. Just because I think ALL hand-drawn art should be legal, does not mean think children should be raped, you fucking Republican retard. (And by the way, I'm Republican myself. I'm allowed to insult members of my own party. Now get the hell out, because we don't want shitheads like you in our party.)
It's evil (typical of Microsoft that had a mission to kill competitors). The US DOJ and EU Commission didn't drag Microsoft into antitrust lawsuits just for fun. They are a dishonest company. NT 6.1 named "seven" is a lie.
Good idea but would not pass the Congress. You'd have to pass Amendment 28 first, and then the "punish Congressmen" amendment at some later date. Baby steps.
>>>>Another good start would be to repeal the 17th Amendment
You would immediately labeled "anti-democratic" or possible even "racist", so while I support the idea, I'm afraid it would quickly die. Besides even when the Senate was the States' House, unconstitutional laws still passed. Look at the Alien Sedition Act or the Fugitive Slave Act.
>>>Does this mean that these technologies would not have been invented anyway ? I don't think so
I do. Why would JVC invest billions of dollars developing the VHS VCR, if they couldn't get a cut of each sale? Other companies like RCA, gpx, et cetera would just swoop-in and copy the design, and JVC would go bankrupt due to the billion-dollar unpaid bill.
Maybe she's 5 now and in fifteen years she'll be 20. It's unlikely but certainly possible to become a granddad when your daughter is 20. .
>>>h.264 will be about as useful 15 years from now as Intel Indeo is right now.
I'll be amazed if they come-up with anything better. For video compression I suspect they've already reached the limit to how small a file can be, without degrading the viewers' experience. I suspect MPE4 AVC/h.264 will still be used in TV broadcasts, cable distribution, internet video, and Bluray Disc.
Yeah but MP3 is also obsolete. AAC+SBR (HE-AAC) or MP3+SBR (MP3pro) are much better codecs, generating the same audio quality with only half the bitrate. MP3 will be free, but I certainly won't be buying any songs encoded with it.
Speaking of encoding, why the heck does Apple have the AppleLossless codec if I can't buy any iTunes songs in that format.:-|
If you're right that means MPEG1 (including Mp3) should expire within 1-2 years, and become public domain. And MPEG2 used in American television will be liberated around 2015.
Okay but what about when AMD and Cyrix later copied the 486 and Pentium CPUs? Didn't they infringe on Intel's patents? I know Intel tried to sue them, but ultimately lost the case because the implementations were compatible, but different.
It seems to be that VP8 could just hire the same lawyers AMD/cyrix hired and win any potential lawsuits from MPEG-LA.
>>>You don't want a decoder "with differing end results" because then you can't decode conforming bitstreams.
Actually you do. You don't want your VP8 codec decoding MPEG4 AVC, else you really would be infringing patents. What you DO want is for VP8 to stand alone, following similar techniques, but producing different mutually-incompatible files from MPEG4 codecs (same way Mac floppies and PC floppies are not compatible). That way there's no infringement.
Not even lose to accurate. Manufacture of a car is about 50,000 miles worth of gasoline for the average vehicle. So if a car lasts 300,000 miles (500,000 for diesels) then we're looking at just 14% of total energy expenditure, not 75%.
Of course this is why the Cash for Clunkers idea was ridiculous. If people had been required to upgrade to 40mpg or higher, then it would have been good, but going from 20 to 25mpg is nothing. The increased fuel efficiency does NOT make up for the ~50,000 miles worth of manufacturing energy wasted to destroy a perfectly working vehicle.
It's the equivalent of me going round smashing windows in order to try to boost the economy. (Or starting a war.) It's destruction not production
1000 mpg per (electric) gallon isn't even close to accurate.
Hobbyists who actually drive EVs average about 300 watt-hours per mile driven. That converts to around 40 miles per gallon-equivalent. In other words about the same as a Honda Civic HX or Prius Hybrid. (Put another way, a one hour 60 mile EV trip is 18 kwh - same amount as my window AC uses in 72 hours.)
We don't have to stop using oil to remove our presence from the Mideast. We could do it *right now* by simply pulling out. "Protect the oil" is an excuse by power-loving politicians to justify their acts, but we also have a big military presence in Europe and Japan. Is there oil there? No.
So that means even if the Mideast had no oil whatsoever, or we stopped using oil completely, the Congress would still keep troops there - it's the desire to dominate that is the root cause. And I agree with Congressman Ron Paul - we need to stop acting like a modern day Roman Empire, and bring the soldiers home. There's no reason to have distant outposts in foreign, sovereign nations.
I don't think pure electric cars have a future. People don't want to be limited to a 300 mile radius when they travel. When GREET performed a study several years ago, they found the most efficient car (least energy used) was actually an electric-diesel hybrid, where the electric was the primary motivator and the diesel engine provided a backup for the battery.
They ranked a pure diesel car as the second most efficient, as evidenced by the almost 90mpg Lupo in Germany (or the 250mpg prototype).
Bzzz. The power outages were caused by the CA government creating a central electricity trading market, which only allowed trades once a day. That meant companies were not able to react to the constantly changing customer demand, and that led to rolling blackout. In other words - per usual - blame government and price controls for the shortages.
>>>Central production of electricity at a power plant is more efficient than millions of cars producing it in internal combustion engines.
Not according to ACEEE.org which ranks electric cars like the EV1 as no "cleaner" than a Prius or Civic Hybrid (it's a tie), and less clean than a 70mpg Honda Insight (the cleanest car in the US). The reason electrics don't rank higher is because the primary source is coal energy, plus losses in the lines as the electric travels hundreds of miles, and losses inside the battery as electricity is converted to chemical energy, and then back.
Not really. AC Propulsion's electric sedans still sell for a high pricepoint, even though they are about 10 years old.
Of course it's always possible the idea will flop, and Tesla dealers will sell new cars for dirt cheap. I was able to get my Honda Insight for only $12,000 since the dealer had 20 of them collecting dust in his garage. The demand simply wasn't there in 2001.
I already cut cable TV during the last recession (2000) and my cellphone from $30 downto the $5 plan. There's not much left to cut, unless I convert my home from 2 stories to 1 story (to cut heating cost). Or demolish it completely and build a PassivHaus (virtually no heating needed). .
>>>including Tesla.
Well, they now have Toyota's money. I hope this partnership is as profitable as the Toyota-Ford Hybrid partnership turned out to be, and not another case of a big company buying a small company in order to mothball the technology.
Yes people don't seem to understand how BIG the U.S. is. If I order from amazon.com, it has to travel 2000 miles from California, and there's not much in-between. By car it's a 3 day journey. First the steam engine and now gasoline/diesel-fueled vehicles are what keeps this country connected.
If the cost doubles, it will have a major impact on our goods, our food, and our business travel. The EU has an advantage, as most of their goods can be shipped via water (for example from Poland to Spain) which is cheaper than land travel. The U.S. doesn't have that. Goods travel over the roads or rails.
That won't reduce the cost. When Toyota sold Rav4 EVs, which were made in a foreign country with cheap labor, the thing still cost $45000 to purchase..... about double the cost of the gasoline version. The high cost comes from the battery which is 4x larger than the one in a hybrid, and of course 4x as much money.
The Rav4 EV was also costly to maintain. The battery required replacement every 100,000 miles - that's a cost equal to replacing an engine in a normal car, but about 3 times more frequently.
>>>some owners offering up to $100,000 to keep them
It would cost GM more money than that to keep a stockpile of parts for the EV1 (as required by law). It was cheaper for them to crush the cars. That said if I owned an EV1 I'd probably "disappear" with the car to some other state. Maybe hide it in some farmers barn in Wyoming, and then put it in a museum ~20 years from now. The EV1 deserved to be preserved.
>>>I've never seen one on the road except for a few hybrids
How do you know? Many hobbyists convert gasoline cars to electrics, and you'd never know it just by looking at them.
As for me, electrics don't but it. I make frequent ~1000 mile trips, and I can't waste time while the battery takes 4 hours to recharge. Instead I have a hybrid which "recharges" with gasoline in just five minutes.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't think Pay TV is screwed at all. It's now automatic for Americans to move-into house and hook-up the utilities: electric, water, internet, and cable TV. If you don't have cable TV you're in the minority (~20%).
As for local TV, I think its future is in the hands of the FCC.
And unfortunately the FCC seems to have sold-out to big corporations, because they keep talking about killing broadcast/antenna television. If that happens, I'll be disappointed. I got about 40 non-duplicated channel using my antenna, all free. I have no desire to be forced into paying Comcast $20 a month for "lifeline" basic. I enjoy what I have:
ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, CW, MyNetTV, Ion, Univision, Telefutura, PBS (main channels)
Subchannels:
- GetWellTV
- This movie channel
- Weather channel
- NBC Sports
- RetroTV
- MiND
- Megahertz
- Link
- PBSworld
- PBSarts
- TBN
- Church Channel
- Smile of a Child (kiddie programs)
- JCTV
- ENLACE
- qubo (kids)
- IONlife
- Family Channel (old shows and movies)
- Syndicated Channel (current movies, plus shows like Legend of the Seeker)
>>>If depicted, non-authentic childporn was legal, he'd argue that childporn should be lega
Bullshit.
Child sex means there's a victim, and the perpetrator should be arrested. Just because I think ALL hand-drawn art should be legal, does not mean think children should be raped, you fucking Republican retard. (And by the way, I'm Republican myself. I'm allowed to insult members of my own party. Now get the hell out, because we don't want shitheads like you in our party.)
>>>It's marketing.
It's evil (typical of Microsoft that had a mission to kill competitors). The US DOJ and EU Commission didn't drag Microsoft into antitrust lawsuits just for fun. They are a dishonest company. NT 6.1 named "seven" is a lie.
Good idea but would not pass the Congress. You'd have to pass Amendment 28 first, and then the "punish Congressmen" amendment at some later date. Baby steps.
>>>>Another good start would be to repeal the 17th Amendment
You would immediately labeled "anti-democratic" or possible even "racist", so while I support the idea, I'm afraid it would quickly die. Besides even when the Senate was the States' House, unconstitutional laws still passed. Look at the Alien Sedition Act or the Fugitive Slave Act.
>>>Does this mean that these technologies would not have been invented anyway ? I don't think so
I do. Why would JVC invest billions of dollars developing the VHS VCR, if they couldn't get a cut of each sale? Other companies like RCA, gpx, et cetera would just swoop-in and copy the design, and JVC would go bankrupt due to the billion-dollar unpaid bill.
Maybe she's 5 now and in fifteen years she'll be 20. It's unlikely but certainly possible to become a granddad when your daughter is 20.
.
>>>h.264 will be about as useful 15 years from now as Intel Indeo is right now.
I'll be amazed if they come-up with anything better. For video compression I suspect they've already reached the limit to how small a file can be, without degrading the viewers' experience. I suspect MPE4 AVC/h.264 will still be used in TV broadcasts, cable distribution, internet video, and Bluray Disc.
Yeah but MP3 is also obsolete. AAC+SBR (HE-AAC) or MP3+SBR (MP3pro) are much better codecs, generating the same audio quality with only half the bitrate. MP3 will be free, but I certainly won't be buying any songs encoded with it.
Speaking of encoding, why the heck does Apple have the AppleLossless codec if I can't buy any iTunes songs in that format. :-|
If you're right that means MPEG1 (including Mp3) should expire within 1-2 years, and become public domain. And MPEG2 used in American television will be liberated around 2015.
Okay but what about when AMD and Cyrix later copied the 486 and Pentium CPUs? Didn't they infringe on Intel's patents? I know Intel tried to sue them, but ultimately lost the case because the implementations were compatible, but different.
It seems to be that VP8 could just hire the same lawyers AMD/cyrix hired and win any potential lawsuits from MPEG-LA.
>>>You don't want a decoder "with differing end results" because then you can't decode conforming bitstreams.
Actually you do. You don't want your VP8 codec decoding MPEG4 AVC, else you really would be infringing patents. What you DO want is for VP8 to stand alone, following similar techniques, but producing different mutually-incompatible files from MPEG4 codecs (same way Mac floppies and PC floppies are not compatible). That way there's no infringement.
Yeah but where do we get the [energy to crack the water] from? Hmmm.
Not even lose to accurate. Manufacture of a car is about 50,000 miles worth of gasoline for the average vehicle. So if a car lasts 300,000 miles (500,000 for diesels) then we're looking at just 14% of total energy expenditure, not 75%.
Of course this is why the Cash for Clunkers idea was ridiculous. If people had been required to upgrade to 40mpg or higher, then it would have been good, but going from 20 to 25mpg is nothing. The increased fuel efficiency does NOT make up for the ~50,000 miles worth of manufacturing energy wasted to destroy a perfectly working vehicle.
It's the equivalent of me going round smashing windows in order to try to boost the economy. (Or starting a war.) It's destruction not production
1000 mpg per (electric) gallon isn't even close to accurate.
Hobbyists who actually drive EVs average about 300 watt-hours per mile driven. That converts to around 40 miles per gallon-equivalent. In other words about the same as a Honda Civic HX or Prius Hybrid. (Put another way, a one hour 60 mile EV trip is 18 kwh - same amount as my window AC uses in 72 hours.)
We don't have to stop using oil to remove our presence from the Mideast. We could do it *right now* by simply pulling out. "Protect the oil" is an excuse by power-loving politicians to justify their acts, but we also have a big military presence in Europe and Japan. Is there oil there? No.
So that means even if the Mideast had no oil whatsoever, or we stopped using oil completely, the Congress would still keep troops there - it's the desire to dominate that is the root cause. And I agree with Congressman Ron Paul - we need to stop acting like a modern day Roman Empire, and bring the soldiers home. There's no reason to have distant outposts in foreign, sovereign nations.
>>>If we want to move to 100% electric cars
I don't think pure electric cars have a future. People don't want to be limited to a 300 mile radius when they travel. When GREET performed a study several years ago, they found the most efficient car (least energy used) was actually an electric-diesel hybrid, where the electric was the primary motivator and the diesel engine provided a backup for the battery.
They ranked a pure diesel car as the second most efficient, as evidenced by the almost 90mpg Lupo in Germany (or the 250mpg prototype).
Bzzz. The power outages were caused by the CA government creating a central electricity trading market, which only allowed trades once a day. That meant companies were not able to react to the constantly changing customer demand, and that led to rolling blackout. In other words - per usual - blame government and price controls for the shortages.
Would You Like To Read More?
http://reason.org/news/show/powering-up-california
>>>Central production of electricity at a power plant is more efficient than millions of cars producing it in internal combustion engines.
Not according to ACEEE.org which ranks electric cars like the EV1 as no "cleaner" than a Prius or Civic Hybrid (it's a tie), and less clean than a 70mpg Honda Insight (the cleanest car in the US). The reason electrics don't rank higher is because the primary source is coal energy, plus losses in the lines as the electric travels hundreds of miles, and losses inside the battery as electricity is converted to chemical energy, and then back.
Not really. AC Propulsion's electric sedans still sell for a high pricepoint, even though they are about 10 years old.
Of course it's always possible the idea will flop, and Tesla dealers will sell new cars for dirt cheap. I was able to get my Honda Insight for only $12,000 since the dealer had 20 of them collecting dust in his garage. The demand simply wasn't there in 2001.
>>>Expect to take a pay cut, and a lifestyle cut.
I already cut cable TV during the last recession (2000) and my cellphone from $30 downto the $5 plan. There's not much left to cut, unless I convert my home from 2 stories to 1 story (to cut heating cost). Or demolish it completely and build a PassivHaus (virtually no heating needed).
.
>>>including Tesla.
Well, they now have Toyota's money. I hope this partnership is as profitable as the Toyota-Ford Hybrid partnership turned out to be, and not another case of a big company buying a small company in order to mothball the technology.
Yeah but where do we get they hydrogen from? Hmmm.
Yes people don't seem to understand how BIG the U.S. is. If I order from amazon.com, it has to travel 2000 miles from California, and there's not much in-between. By car it's a 3 day journey. First the steam engine and now gasoline/diesel-fueled vehicles are what keeps this country connected.
If the cost doubles, it will have a major impact on our goods, our food, and our business travel. The EU has an advantage, as most of their goods can be shipped via water (for example from Poland to Spain) which is cheaper than land travel. The U.S. doesn't have that. Goods travel over the roads or rails.
That won't reduce the cost. When Toyota sold Rav4 EVs, which were made in a foreign country with cheap labor, the thing still cost $45000 to purchase..... about double the cost of the gasoline version. The high cost comes from the battery which is 4x larger than the one in a hybrid, and of course 4x as much money.
The Rav4 EV was also costly to maintain. The battery required replacement every 100,000 miles - that's a cost equal to replacing an engine in a normal car, but about 3 times more frequently.
>>>some owners offering up to $100,000 to keep them
It would cost GM more money than that to keep a stockpile of parts for the EV1 (as required by law). It was cheaper for them to crush the cars. That said if I owned an EV1 I'd probably "disappear" with the car to some other state. Maybe hide it in some farmers barn in Wyoming, and then put it in a museum ~20 years from now. The EV1 deserved to be preserved.
>>>I've never seen one on the road except for a few hybrids
How do you know? Many hobbyists convert gasoline cars to electrics, and you'd never know it just by looking at them.
As for me, electrics don't but it. I make frequent ~1000 mile trips, and I can't waste time while the battery takes 4 hours to recharge. Instead I have a hybrid which "recharges" with gasoline in just five minutes.